


Trying To Escape The Inevitable

by FrankietheHalloweenQueen



Series: Trying To Escape The Inevitable [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kid Fic, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:12:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 60,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrankietheHalloweenQueen/pseuds/FrankietheHalloweenQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard is an absent minded comic artist who looses his daughter in the supermarket. Frank is an over worked check out attendant with too many bands and too little sleep who helps him find her. Somehow idiots fall in love.</p><p>~“You know this happens all the time right?” Frank asked, ducking down to check under the produce bins, he’d found a whole group of kids eating a packet of skittles colour by colour under there once, like some kind of weird new age lord of the flies shit. Supermarkets man, you saw fucking everything.~</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The one where Gerard looses Bandit and Frank helps him find her.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I do not know these people or own them, I just write fun stories about them to make myself and those I know happy. Thanks again to Lizzie and Em for being such ultra babes with the cheer squadding and beta'ing. For now it's a fluff fest but in my usual style thing will start to angst and smut up soon enough.

Gerard had never really been the sort of person who checked ingredient listings on the back of food packets, he’d rarely taken note of how much sugar or artificial anything was in whatever he put in his mouth, he just put it there and enjoyed the fact that it stopped him from falling over or going into some kind of starved coma. That was before Bandit got into Mikey’s emergency fruit loops and ended up drawing a crayon mural all over his 20 dollar a page concept sheets (which he was now out of and had no idea how he was going to finish the sketches dark horse had asked for two weeks ago) and the kitchen floor. The kitchen floor wasn’t so bad he supposed the black and white linemen sort of looked cool with blue swirls and red stars on it. Though the smudges that had formed on his living room carpet from Bandit’s tiny crayon covered footsteps not so much.

Now it wasn’t that Gerard hadn’t bothered to learn these things, he’d just never really needed to, Lyn usually had Bandit, so aside from the occasional weekend or week day (depending on both of their schedules of course) Bandit’s dietary requirements were mostly someone else’s problem, as were her crayons. Being the ‘cool’ (he’d never really be cool and he knew it) weekend Dad suited him, it’s why he’d jacked off into the cup in the first place. Long term serious commitments had never been his thing (confirmed ever more by the fact that every even mildly long term relationship he had ever had could be counted on one hand) being a full time dad wasn’t something he’d really considered. So why was he now attempting to find something both nutritious and good for wee children? Because he was a sucker for his best friend and her overwhelming need to return to her life on the road as a bad ass musician? Okay well yes that was defiantly part of it, his recent onset of loneliness during the anniversary of his grandmothers death probably had a fair bit to do with it too, Gerard was, as usual, decidedly not thinking about that though.

“Marshmallows are super light, so they can’t have that much sugar in them can they? B, do you like marshmallows?”Gerard asked, frowning down at a packet of Lucky Charms.

He’d never been very good at grocery shopping. For the first six months that he’d lived out of home he’d survived on tins of baked beans and takeout. Supermarkets were so daunting with their glossy white isles of food, roamed by powerfully built super mums with shopping trolleys full of organic food and disenchanted looking children; it’d all been too much for him. It wasn’t until Bob had dragged him into one of the dreaded stores for fear that Gerard would be the first adult middle class person in the world to get scurvy that he overcame his fears and was forced to learn the joys that could be obtained by purchasing and eating a wide range of brightly packaged products. Gerard mainly had fun buying weird kinds of jam and cheese, most of which he never ate and were left rotting in his fridge with knives sticking out of them until Brian got sick and tired of the smell and cleaned out his fridge for him. Considering the number of band posters he’d drawn for him over the years, Gerard figured it was the least Brian could do really.

“Cute guy in Isle 3, he appears to be enchanted by a box of luck charms, so I figure you’re both of similar mental age, you should go for it Frankie” Spencer teased, scaring the living shit out of Frank as he attempted to look like he was checking price tags while having a nap in one of the shelves. Secret napping was in Frank’s mind, one of his best skills, if he had a super power, that would probably be it really, stealth napping, anywhere, anytime.

As it was, working at the Stop n’ Shop was probably his best bet for napping these days, between being in three bands, night school and his two, wait fuck, three other jobs, a regular sleep cycle wasn’t really in Frank’s schedule at the moment.He couldn’t sleep during practice of course, though okay he had tried that one time but Percy had just played cow bell at him until Frank had broken the drumstick over his head, so that was that. The coffee store was pointless, between the constant caffeine intake and the sheer tiny size of the place, there was no point. Waving his price gun at Spencer, Frank rolled his eyes but headed for the aisle anyway, it’d been a pretty boring day so far, staring at some cute guy for a couple of minutes couldn’t hurt.

Gerard should have noticed that Bandit wasn’t running circles around him by now, okay yes he really should have, but he still wasn’t used to not living in his own dream world most of the time, so Bandits silence wasn’t as alarming as it ought to have been. “Do you like honey Bambam? I could get crunchy honey stuff, honey is natural so at least it’s not as bad right? Maybe that would cause you to lean towards more muted and greenish tones, I suppose that’d match the furniture better” Gerard pondered,tugging at a strand of his hair as he reread the contents of the lucky charms again, how in the hell could marshmallows be so light with that much sugar in them? What the fuck even was science these days seriously?

So Spencer was right, (as he usually was, sassy asshole) the guy in the breakfast aisle was cute, more than that actually, tight dark jeans, women’s ones too by the cut in the arse, well cut white button down, black vest and jacket, messy black hair, fuck, he was the nicest thing Frank had seen in weeks. He also seemed to be talking to himself, or perhaps some kind of imaginary friend and if Frank was being honest even his recent several month long celibacy (put in place by the universe to fuck with him, Frank was in no way happy with this) wasn’t going to allow him to stoop low enough to bang nut cases, he’d tried that before with pretty horrific results.“Can you remember what mummy usually bu- “ Frank had never seen anyone look so horrified at a shopping cart in his life. Ok so maybe more young kid and a lot less imaginary friend, great now he was perving on some hopeless father, well perfect.

Bandit was gone, 100% defiantly gone, which explained why she hadn’t been answering him, wait fuck how long had she been gone for and where could she have gone and oh god she’d probably been abducted by some murderous child snatcher while he was considering colour wheels and sugar content. He was the worst father. Ever.Gerard dropped the box of cereal, correcting himself a little too late as the box wobbled off the shelf and onto the floor.

“Bandit?”Gerard called again, ignoring his trolley as he turned, getting a face full of black haired check out attendant. Great now not only had he lost his kid but he was going to get bared from his local shops for throwing packaging on the floor, didn’t kids do that all the time? Though kids got special treatment he supposed, seriously though where the fuck was his?

“Dude you lose something?” Frank asked raising an eyebrow as the guy in front of him seemed to have some serious frontal lobe malfunctioning going on. “We have one of those old style PA system things that we can use to call, Bambam was it?” Frank asked, hoping to stop this guy from going nuclear and crying on him or something, today really couldn’t be one of those days, he still had another 5 hours at the coffee shop after this.

“No, it’s Bandit, but yes, I, she, she’s small and has dark hair, like mine, see I was trying to decide on cereal because too much sugar sends kid’s nuts and then they make your kitchen floor look like a surrealists dream of the American flag you know?” Gerard replied altogether too quickly, sort of flailing his hands around ineffectually as the guy in front of him leaned back in that ‘ok so this guy is crazy get the fuck out of here’ sort of way. Great now he was alienating shop workers, this was going so fucking well, why was he allowed to have children again?

Frank frowned and then nodded, okay Bandit was sort of weird but it was worlds better than Bambam, kids names really were getting ridiculous these days.Reaching out Frank grabbed ‘weird father guy with potential Aspergers ’ jacket sleeve, steering him towards the front counter as he kept an eye out for a small dark haired kid. He should never listen to Spencer-fucking-Smith, asshole.

“Vicky darling there’s a kid missing in the store, can you get Ryland to put a call out for, “Bandit?” Frank asked a pretty but all together very bored looking girl at the front counter, watching as Gerard nodded, his eyes swinging across the store. She sighed, but picked up the phone, repeating Gerard’s garbled description to whoever was on the other line.

“We can start from the front okay, Ryland will call us if he finds her” Frank explained as he continued to tow Gerard towards the front of the store, slowing down every once in a while as Gerard stopped to check in other people’s trolleys, what did he think the kid would be under a bag of pea’s?

“You know this happens all the time right?” Frank asked, ducking down to check under the produce bins, he’d found a whole group of kids eating a packet of skittles colour by colour under there once, like some kind of weird new age lord of the flies shit. Supermarkets man, you saw fucking everything.

“Her mother is actually going to kill me, this hasn’t happened before, losing her I mean, not that there’s been much of a chance, we don’t tend to go out much, I mean not because going out isn’t good, I just don’t usually see her much- Bandit?” Gerard cried but frowned as the little girl in front of them turned to reveal herself to actually be a little boy, well wasn’t that nice, his parents letting him wear a princess dress like that. Gerard smiled sort of vaguely before he hurried to catch up with Frank who seemed utterly thrilled to be getting a hurried version of his life as the worst dad in the universe.

“See she’s on tour, so I’m looking after her for a few months, which is cool, because kid’s are brilliant and all that, but they’re so small and you have to keep an eye on them and that’s not really my strong point” Frank chuckled, pointing in the direction they would head next as Ryland droned out a description of the lost girl and her name, asking for her to be brought to the front desk.

“We’ll find her dude, she’s probably asleep somewhere, I know that’s where I’d be” Frank called over his shoulder, stopping all of a sudden as he had one of those truly excellent light bulb moments, causing a still rambling Gerard to run right into the back of him.

“shit sorry” Gerard yelped as he collided with Frank, doing a little more ineffectual flailing as he attempted to regain his footing, managing to smack himself in the face in the process, releasing a sharp “Fuck” as a mother of three rounded the corner with her kids, glaring at him the entire time.

“I swear child services are going to swoop out any second now and arrest me” he sighed, as Frank promptly disappeared down the aisle ahead of them, causing Gerard to jog to catch up with him. Rounding the corner Gerard stumbled towards Frank who was now crouched down, a little smile on his face as he pointed at a pile of… were those plush ponies? Wait they had horns, plush unicorns. Bandit lay in the pile, happily sleeping with her arm curled around a rather battered blue one.

“Yours I presume?” Frank asked, winking at Gerard as he started gratefully at his sleeping daughter, bending down to tug on her foot. “B, you gotta wake up, you can’t sleep in a supermarket” Frank chuckled at that, knowing all too well how very wrong Gerard was. Bandit blinked sleepily, gazing up at Frank for a moment before her eyes caught Gerard and she smiled, “I found ponies Daddy”

They both laughed at that, stopping only when the crackling sound of the PA broke over the usual boring community radio.

“Could the owner of one small dark haired child please come to the front desk? I think we’ve found her, wait no it’s a-a, him? Wait Vicky wha-Oh ok, no he’s accounted for, but way to go you parents and being so open minded! Dresses should not be gender specific, if your kid wants to be a princess he damn well should be allowed to. Wait am I allowed to say damn on here? What kind of rules are there? Is it like Radio where you can say stuff like shit but nothing harder? Or is regulated like TV with limits directly affected by the time in which I am talking?” Gerard and Frank frowned, staring up at the ceiling speaker at the sound of Ryland being wrestled from the desk and a quick apology was announced.

“Geee can I have a pony? They’re so nice and they looked after me when I got lost” Bandit called, tugging at Gerard’s pant leg as she climbed out of the pony pile, drawing both men’s attention back to ground level and the tiny girl who stood there still clutching the battered blue soft toy.

“You mean when you ran away?” Gerard asked, raising an eyebrow, his composure rather swiftly returning as the imminent threat of losing his child dissipated.  
“But the Ponie’s were calling to her” Frank offered, snickering a little as Bandit nodded, pointing at Frank, “What the pretty boy said Gee, please Gee, they wanted me to come and free them”

Kids were evil like this, that was something that Gerard had learned a long time ago. One of the first things children seemed to learn was how to push their parent’s buttons. Manipulation appeared to be instinctual in infants, as if were some kind of survival skill and Gerard supposed that at some point in time it probably was, after all, considering how much hassle babies were if we didn’t find them so damn cute they’d probably get left in shopping carts more often or whatever.

Bandit’s particular brand of heart string tugging came in her nickname for her father. People called Gerard Gee all the time; however everyone else who called him that didn’t happen to have it as their first word. Most kids mumbled out ‘dad’ or ‘cat’ or something similar, but not this one, not his kid, she’d looked right at him, pointed that chubby little hand of hers and proclaimed “GEE!” at the top of her lungs. The effect it had had on him was instantaneous and somewhat continuous, that’s what little people did to you he supposed, they made you experience a lot of ous’s.Understandably she’d been using it ever since, manipulating its use as soon as she was old enough to properly understand the effect it had on her father. There was a boxset of every single Disney film ever created at her mother’s apartment to prove it.

“You can only have one” Gerard replied in as firm a tone as one could use when agreeing to buy his daughter a stuffed unicorn that was about the same size as she herself was. “But put it in the shopping cart because- oh” that was right, he’d left the shopping cart behind, with his wallet in it and his keys /fuck/

“We found her!” Spencer called over his shoulder, turning the corner with Gerard’s shopping trolley, Spencers comic timing was as ever, in no way amusing and several parts far too accompanied by his signature shit eating grin. Wiggling his eyebrows at Frank in that way that said ‘you owe me Iero’ Spencer swaggered over to the two men and yeah great, because owing Spencer Smith something was about as favourable as defaulting on a loan to the mob except all together more humiliating in the long run.

“I believe this is yours” Spencer explained, handing Gerard his cart, “So Frank helped you find her huh? He’s talented like that, really good with kids, then again they both have similar mental ages so it’s not surprising”

Frank was going to kill him, he was going to kill him and hide his bones at the bottom of the discount bins by the canned food section. Maybe he’d kill Spencer with the cans first, that would have to hurt.

“I think of all of us I acted most like a child, then again Bandit did fall asleep in a pile of ponies, so maybe the second most childish” Gerard replied, frowning at Spencer as he crouched down to ask Bandit about her new Unicorn who she had now decided to call ‘Frank’ because yes, of courses she had.

“Thank you really though” Gerard sort of half mumbled, scratching the back of his neck as he looked at his shoes, which had paint all over them, when did that happen? It couldn’t have been when he was doing the piece on the old doors because he’d been barefoot almost that entire week, he’d been working on some important scenes for séance’s character and much like the character couldn’t bare wearing shoes. It didn’t entirely make sense to him either, but he was a peace with that sort of shit now.

“Hey you lost your kid, you uh…” Frank blinked for a minute, hearing Bandit giggle in the background as Gerard continued to have a staring contest with his shoes, “No worries alright? I mean it’s my good deed for the day or something” Frank replied lamely, decidedly ignoring Spencer as he snickered.

This was getting awkward, painfully so, “So well, cool, happy uh, shopping I suppose?” Frank replied as Gerard attempted to have some kind of magical conversation with his paint covered shoes, “It was nice to meet you Bandit” he finished, crouching down as she moved to give him a hug, “Daddy’s sort of strange, I don’t think he remembers that we painted his shoes last week, he always gets that look on his face when he’s looking at paint” she giggled, causing Gerard to snap out of his Vulcan freaking mind meld with his footwear long enough to give Frank some kind of stupidly heart stopping smile as he held his free hand out for Bandit and began to lead her back towards the cereal aisle.  
What.The.Fuck.Was.That.

“Oooooooooooooh” Spence sing songed like a teenage girl, which wasn’t surprising considering he still dressed like one. “You’re blushing Frankie boy” he noted obviously, as he handed Frank one of the several ponies that had fallen onto the floor during Bandit’s excavation from pony sleep land. “Oh and there’s a new shipment of feminine hygiene products to be packed onto the shelves, so uh, happing shopping” Spencer mumbled in an exaggerated and totally bullshit impersonation of Frank as he made his way back towards the front desk.

“I don’t sound like that asshole!” Frank called back lamely, glaring at the Unicorn in his hand, “The fuck are you looking at?” he snapped at it, feeling altogether far crazier than he had when he got up this morning. Stupid hot artist dads and their pony loving children.

__

The rest of the shopping trip went by with minimal fuck ups. Gerard ended up forgetting to get breakfast cereal (they’d just eat pancakes, screw it) and Bandit left Frank the unicorn behind in the soda section causing them to run back and conduct a sort of find and rescue mission that got altogether too involved when they decided to pretend that the Pepsi Max bottles were in fact evil robots sent back in time to steal and enslave all unicorns and their friends alike.  
Later that evening, Gerard sighed down the phone to Lyn as Bandit laughed at Finn and Jake yelling at a Pony with Poo brain, hugging her own Pony, who she affirmed to Gerard loudly, did not in fact have poo brain. Pausing for a second she asked him to ‘make sure to let mummy know that he doesn’t’ because she ‘didn’t want her to get worried’ and he smiled as Lyn laughed at him.

“I remember the first time that happened to me” Lyn replied, her voice was sort of scratchy and distant, a little too quiet as the sound of passing cars filtered heavily through the speaker of his phone. ”Fuck it’s scary isn’t it?”

“The trick is to bribe her” she laughed, moving a little until the background sound lessened a little, the venue must be off some kind of highway he supposed, he couldn’t remember which city she was up to by now, it didn’t really matter in the long run, they all melded together by the end.

“Bribe her?” Gerard asked staring down into the pot of soup he was stirring. He wasn’t exactly an amazing cook so he was pretty damn thankful that Bandit was such an easy kid to feed; he should probably thank Lyn for that at some point. Maybe he’d buy her a unicorn too.  
“Yeah, you keep her close with rewards, I usually use apple slices”“Apple…” Gerard frowned, changing the direction he stirred with his spoon, hearing his grandmother’s voice echoing from his childhood chiding him for changing the motion and upsetting the pot. He went back to the other direction; even in death Elena was formidable like that.

“Keep a bag of them on you, only give her one at a time, that way she has to come back to you every time she wants another one” She sounded tired, not in a bad way Gerard mused, work tired, like how he got when he’d been working for a few days straight on a new project and had forgotten to sleep, it was nice, she hadn’t sounded the good kind of tired in a while.

“That’s such a brilliant idea” he hummed smiling as she replied “I know” laughing down the phone line, he could almost hear her shaking her head and rolling her eyes at him.

“And it’s encouraging healthy eating habits” he supplied; yep there would be another eye roll again. “Yes Gerard it does seem that not only was I capable of popping a perfect adorable child out from between my legs but I seem to have found a knack for raising her too, you’ll do the same you know”

Gerard bit his lip, pausing in his stirring, only starting again when the soup popped out an impressively violent bubble, depositing boiling liquid onto his hand.

“I know I just, I mean I lost the list” he replied cursing silently as he sucked the soup off his hand, fuck that hurt. “Well okay I didn’t lose it, I put t through the wash”

“Hey at least you were doing washing” She replied, mumbling something to someone nearby,  
“You’re already doing better than you were in art school, next thing you’ll be telling me that you’ve started showering more than once a week. I can email you a new one; I don’t know why I didn’t think of that in the first place, you’re much better with digital stuff. You’re doing fine, she’s happy; she has a new unicorn and a fucking bedroom under the stairs. I’m going to kill you for that by the way, how is any room I give her ever going to compare to magical Harry Potter land you’ve created for her over there?”

Ok so that was something that he was pretty proud of. When Bandit came and stayed with him she usually slept in his spare room/comic room/ that place where all your spare stuff ends up. He always cleaned it up for her of course and there were so many weird and random things in there that she really quite loved it, there was always something new for her to look at and the bed was pretty big. Gerard usually just used it for canvas storage so it wasn’t until Bandit started coming to stay overnight that he’d really even noticed how big it was. When Lyn made the decision to tour again he knew she’d need her own space. The spare room was all well and good for the occasional visit but not for a solid couple of months. At first he’d thought he could just clean the room out and put up some pictures of fairies or whatever she was into at the moment, but whenever he tried he ended up lost in several hours of back issue reading and not enough space to put, well anything. It wasn’t until he was trying to get the old overhead projector he’d ‘borrowed’ from art school several years before and promptly forgotten to return, out of the room under his stairs that the idea had hit him.

Next had been the phone call, asking Bob to come over with a tape measure and some tools. He’d been babbling about Harry Potter and little girls and beds that folded. Bob was a solid sort of dude so he’d hummed along in agreement while texting Toro and Mikey and forcing them to get their arses over to Gerard’s house to make sure he didn’t cut his hand off or something while trying to figure out how to use a spirit level . It had taken a couple of weeks of after work all-nighters,entire weekends paid for with promises of his mother’s lasagne (it was legendary) and hugs that Bob pretended to Tolerate while he quietly smiled until Mikey caught one such moment on camera and lost his phone to a freak staple gun accident. Gerard couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Bob look so satisfied.

The space was perfect. Exactly the right size for a girl her age, the entire room was panelled with wood and painted white, Mikey had helped him hang string upon string of tiny star shaped fairy lights and Ray had installed book shelves along an entire wall that held her toys and the numerous books Gerard had already collected for her. What it lacked in natural light it made up for in the mural of the sky Gerard had painted on the ceiling, puffy white clouds lay floating happily in the rich blue swirls. It was a far cry from the dank basement Gerard had grown up in, though he did rather enjoy his daughter’s similar preference of small enclosed areas.  
“Yeah well let’s wait and see how we deal with her Hogwarts letter not turning up when she’s 11” Gerard sighed, shaking his head when Bandit called out in question about him mentioning the magical castle. “Not now sweetie” he called back, sighing at the thought of it already.  
“That’s a bridge I’ll allow you to cross completely and utterly on your own, when the time is right Gee” Lyn replied, as the click of her lighter broke through the silence.

“I thought you quit” Gerard replied, his own fingers itching for a smoke, he refused to allow himself while he was with Bandit though. When she was sleeping he snuck one from time to time and the other day when Alicia had taken her to get some new Pyjama’s after they’d spilt yellow paint on her others he maybe chain smoked at Mikey for twenty minutes straight, but he was trying at least.

“Mmm so did I, but what happens on the road stays on the road, that was always the rule wasn’t it?” She asked, chuckling down the phone quietly.

He missed her, he always did when she went away, his mother had always said that it was a right shame that Lyn was a girl, they were a near perfect fit otherwise, Gerard rolled his shoulders and turned off the stove, juggling bowls as she told him about their last few gigs, about Jimmy climbing onto the shoulders of one of the security guard’s and directing him through the crowd. He laughed and hummed in agreement when it was necessary, listening more for the sound of her voice than the words that she gave him. When it was time for her to head back for sound check, for him to get Bandit ready for dinner, she smiled and he could feel it, all the way across the country, “You’re doing fine Gee, I knew you would, that’s why I left her with you”  
“That’s not the real reason Lyn, but it’s okay”  
“That didn’t change anything, you’re ready, give her a kiss for me will you? And don’t let her get away with too much; I don’t want to get home to find her roaming around bare foot coated in paint quoting Morrissey alright?”

Dinner was passable, Bandit wondered about what would happen to the rest of Frank the Pony’s unicorn friends and Gerard came up with a story about them running away together to live on a space station in the milky way that made her laugh looking out the window in wonder. Perhaps things would be alright after all.


	2. The one where Frank gets covered in glitter but Gerard has a huge crush on him anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank pisses off Brian. Brian finds a way to palm him off to Gerard. Glitter happens in the best way possible. 
> 
> ~“Shall we make him walk the plank Captain?” Frank asked raising an eyebrow as Bandit leaned back, scratching at an imaginary beard. “ I think we should give him another job, and then you could be first mate” Bandit pondered, grinning a little as Frank copied her motion, stroking his chin.~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual I own nothing, I know nothing. Thanks as ever to Lizzie and Em for putting up with my rants and raves and giggling along with me through this. Chapter 3 is going well and should be out by the end of the week. I am hoping to get to 10,000 word average for each chapter <3 thanks lovers!

Running your own gig venue would be fulfilling they said, it’d be fun getting to be your own boss they said. You could work with your friends and never had to answer to the ‘man’ ever again. ‘They’ whoever they were, were full of shit and Brian Schechter could give you a very detailed dot pointed list to prove it, double spaced and fucking all. “Dude” Brian snapped, attempting to swat the cigarette out of Franks mouth as the little prick sauntered past him, ducking at the exact moment to keep the damn cancer stick safe and sound between his lips.  
“It’s a no smoking venue, fucking hell” Brian sighed, fingers curling around his day planner, Frank was pretty sure that Brian could easily kill someone with that thing if he wanted to, or wait, perhaps he already had. Brian was by far the most efficient son of a bitch that Frank had ever met, if anyone could murder and dispose of a body while still keeping perfect time with the rest of his appointments it would be Brian.  
“You know Bri, I remember a time when you were rock and roll” Frank teased, as Bob appeared from fuck knows where taking hold of the back of his hoody, lifting Frank clear off the ground, holding him there until he handed the damn cigarette over. Bob never played fair, wanker.

“Fuck you Iero I’m still rock and roll!” Brian bit out, entirely ruining the effect of his words by hugging his planner to his chest as he pointed at Lambert, doing that weird eyebrow quirk thing that he seemed to have trained into all of his minions, this place was some kind of cult seriously. The kid headed back behind the bar, as Bob dropped Frank back down with the needed amount of care, stealing a drag of his smoke before he dropped it into his beer bottle.

“You know you really should be nicer to me” Frank bit out, straightening his clothes as he threw Bob a dirty look, turning back to have a crack at Brian.

“I have a free hour between jobs and I decide hey! I’ll pay my three favourite club dudes a visit and give them free copies of our latest EP, the first ones hot off the press and what do I get? Manhandling and a talking to, not cool guys, not fucking cool” Frank winged affectionately, because sure he was a slippery little fucker at times but he knew that they loved him for being the adorable asshole that he was.  
“You came here for the free beer” Brian correct, handing Frank a beer as he passed him, giving the other two to Ray and Bob who nodded in thanks, continuing to check the sound boards and cable’s for the evenings gig.  
“I see that as an added perk, yes, but your company is more than intoxicating enough” Frank replied smoothly, gaining a chuckle from Ray, “Sure thing Frankie, whatever you say man”  
“Look as much as I enjoy these sporadic social visits, unless you’ve got something else to tell me, then you can promptly fuck off or have you forgotten that I’ve got a band showcase in which your goddamn band is the head liner for in what, 6 hours’ time?” Brian asked, considering sneaking outside for a cigarette of his own, if he was entirely honest the whole ‘smoke free’ venue thing was utter shit, but regulations were regulations man, the fuck was he going to do about it?  
“Oh I gotta set you up with this guy I know, he’s been doing the art for the posters on and off over the past few years, I think he’d be really good for the album art you guys wanted” Brain added as an afterthought, glaring at Frank as he moved to light another cigarette. Petulant little prick.  
“Don’t give me that look Schechter, I can see you’re gaspin for one of these things, your eyebrows doing that twitchy thing it always does when you haven’t had enough nicotine” Frank snapped, shaking his lighter before trying for a flame again, sparks burst a few times but no dice.  
"Mikey’s brother right?” Frank asked, raising an eyebrow as he threw down the rest of the beer, man free beer rocked. “That’d be awesome dude” he nodded, dumping the stack of cd’s down onto the bar, “The stuff we’ve got now is cute you know, but it’s not really representing the band well enough”  
“Gerard’s all about zombies and vampires and horror shit, pretty sure you guys are going to be best fucking friends” Brian explained, snagging one of the cd’s from the top of the pile as he wandered past, “If I am not thanked in the cover in bold with like 15 underlines you can bet your ass you won’t be so much as supporting the all ages battle of the bands Iero” The snap of his office door ended their conversation in Brian’s usual curt manner.

 

“What a ray of fucking sunshine” Frank giggled moving to make a nuisance of himself with Ray for a little while, he hadn’t seen either of the guys in a while and it always bummed him out, Toro and Bob were pretty much his favorite dudes in the universe.

“So when are you going to bring your genius level guitar skills to the table Toro and join a band with me huh? Huh?” Frank asked, swinging his legs as he sat on the little side table next to the mixing desk, earning himself several death stares from Bob, he didn’t like anyone near his desk, especially not people as spaztastic as Frank.

“How do you even have time to form another band Frank? Aren’t you already in like 20 others?” Ray asked, appearing from a pile of very tangled guitar leads, frowning down at them as his hair shifted obscuring his face from any real kind of view, Frank had never been sure how the dude actually functioned with that much hair everywhere, wasn’t it some kind of OH and S danger or something?

“Is it that much to ask that people coil these the right fucking way?” Ray grumbled tossing a couple at Frank to tidy. If he was going to hang around he may as well be of some fucking use.  
“Three, but baby I’d give it all up to harmonise with your sick shreds” he crooned, batting his eyelashes at Ray, causing Bob to snort around his cigarette… wait he was smoking a- “Hey no that’s bullshit you can’t fucking do that, Brian rips me a new one for that ten minutes ago and now you’re doing it all over the fucking place, fuck that man, BRIA-ghng“ Frank continued to try and yell as Bob came up behind him, pulling the hood of his hoody straight over his head to muffle his insistent fucking whining. He loved the dude but fuck, he was pretty sure he’d still be talking when he was dead.

Brian returned minutes later to find Bob sitting on Frank, innocently going through his check list, sniffing the air for a moment before his eyes narrowed down at Frank, who let out an indignant squawk attempting to prove that Bob was to blame, only of causing Bob to sit on him on even more.  
Why in the hell was he friends with these wankers again?

Gerard was having one of those days, Bandit didn’t want to get up, like, at all and he had a video hook up with his Editor which he almost missed because when she finally did wake up B refused to wear anything that he picked out and then proceeded to go through his own wardrobe until she had created a strange singlet dress out of one of his (it was Mikeys but he’d totally stolen it because it was cute and that kid had too much clothing already) teenage band singlets, puffed out with a red tule skirt she’d worn last Halloween. She finished the look off with a belt she decided to make out of Gerard’s favourite black tie (which he actually fucking wanted to wear today okay) and her black gumboots. To be honest he thought she looked pretty badass in a misfits dress thing, but she decided to put the outfit together while he was trying to discuss final edits with Scott for the last edition of the Umbrella Academy and sneakily smoke out the window. This almost caused Gerard to fall and brain himself on the pavement two stories down, which really didn’t help aid his concentration as Scott tried to talk him out of rendering two of his main characters powerless in one edition. Gerard agrees to consider other alternatives by the end, though he really has no actual plan to do any such thing and of course Scott knows this as well but Bandit found a can of hair spray somewhere and is trying to give herself a Mohawk or something and yeah, no, Lyn really wouldn’t be alright with a phone call from the emergency room explaining that their child was blind due to a freak hair product accident.  
By the time he gets to the bar he’s got glitter smeared all over one side of his face (Bandit was going to tell him but then she thought he might wipe it off and he looks so pretty like that) and is in such desperate need of coffee that he’d probably drink 7/11 sludge if it meant he had some of that buzz back into his veins.  
~  
“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY” Bandit cried, clomping her way over to the fluffy haired tech, causing him to laugh as he lay the guitar he’d been restringing back onto the rack to catch her in his arms.

They get a wave from Bob who is seriously deep in magical sound mixing territory and Gerard’s not enough of a prick to mess with that. Plus you know Bob is sort of huge and would probably pick Gerard up with one fucking finger and put him up somewhere high where he couldn’t get down and then leave him there or something and okay fuck that, he had more than his fair share of that sorta shit in high school.

“Hey there bumble bee how’ve you been” he asked, as she buried her face into his mountains of hair, kids went nuts for his hair, Gerard didn’t know what the fuck it was about it, maybe he hid candy in there or something.

“Between Iero and B we’re turning into a day care centre I swear” Brian huffed though he smiled as he watched Bandit chatter at Ray, the kid was pretty fucking cute, he’d give her that.  
Gerard raised an eyebrow as Brian entered, looking stressed to fuck as usual. “Iero?” he asked, frowning a little as the door behind him groaned open and a familiar overly styled blonde caught his eye.

“Yeah, he’s in the band Pencey Prep, wants to talk to you about album art, I gave him your number, they haven’t got much cash, but I figure you guys could strike up a deal, plus it gets him out of my hair” Brain smiled, feeling altogether too pleased with the idea of leaving Frank to make Gerard’s life hell instead of his own. Plus Gee owed him after all of the times he excavated rotting cheese out of his fridge and stopped him dying of fucking typhoid.

Gerard just sort of nodded in reply, totally not listening at all because hey, Mikey was here and he had coffee and donuts, shit yeah, Brother hugs and donuts, life didn’t get much better than that. Mikey caught him in a hug as he moved towards the coffee, sliding a cup into Gee’s hand as they broke apart, grinning like idiots at each other. He noticed the glitter smudges but after living with his weird artist brother for most of his life he didn’t bother to mention things like that anymore. Knowing Gerard it was some new kind of makeup concept he was trying out for marshmallow vampire space people who fought seahorses by throwing dice at them or something, fuck he didn’t even know anymore.  
“Hey B!” Mikey called, waving to her as he slapped Gerard’s hand away from the donut with sprinkles on it, “That’s for Bob” he chided, his usual wheezy high pitched laugh following Gerard’s childish pout as he settled for a pink one instead.  
"Dude you've got g-" Bandit shook her head furiously pressing a finger to her lips as Ray paused, frowning down at her, "I want Daddy to look pretty for Frank" she whispered causing Ray's brow to knit a little tighter, "What your unicorn?" he asked, it was a little ridiculous how much he knew about that unicorns life now, she'd only had him for like a day, what was it with the Way's? Freaky creative geniuses. Bandit shook her head again, an entirely evil smile spreading across her face, "The pretty store boy, I dropped the pea's today, so Daddy said we would get some more, because I don't like fish without pea's" Bandit explained as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Well of course, I mean, fish without pea's, it's just not done" Ray agree'd, blinking for a moment as the cogs in his head turned, wait, pretty shop boy, named Frank, who- oh OH!

“Are you, dude is she wearing my Misfits shirt as a dress? That’s fucking awesome” Mikey laughed, holding his hands out to Ray, “Let me look at that hey?” he asked, taking her from Ray, who okay sort of looked like he was having a stroke or something, but he looked happy about it. Which yeah okay, that was weird, even for Ray.

“If we’re done with family reunions and fashion advice I wouldn’t mind the posters” Brain called, leaning against the door of his office, smiling in spite of himself as he watched Mikey put Bandit down so she could twirl for them all, she really was working the hell out of that old t-shirt and was that Gerard two hundred dollar tie around her waist? Man that kid has skills.

Gerard waved at him, fishing a thumb drive out of his pocket, shaking his head as Brian’s eyes narrowed, “I know you wanted mock ups alright, but I ran out of time this morning, Bandit had a fashion disaster and then Scott wanted changes, let’s look at them in your office and I’ll get the ones you like best printed” Gerard explained quickly, attempting to smother the embers of Brian’s rage before it roared straight into his usual bitchy inferno.  
“Excuses, excuses, next time I’ll be sending your parents a note kid, your grades have been slipping and I ain’t down with that shit” Brain drawled, pulling a giggle from Gerard as the two of them disappeared into his office.

__  
As per usual the posters were next to perfect; Brian picked his favourites and sent Lambert out to get them printed because he was apparently the only one left at the bar that hadn’t turned into a child. Not that Brian could exactly say that Bob was acting like a child, because okay he was producing one hell of a light show, but Ray and Mikey playing air guitar onstage as Bandit mimed her way through American psycho was just fucking ridiculous.

“WHAT IN THE HELL DO I PAY YOU MORONS FOR” Brian bellowed, smacking the phone out of Gerard’s hand as he began to take video. “Don’t fuckin encourage them” he growled, crossing his hands over his chest as Ray sort of slumped and looked over at the two of them guiltily, Mikey had the audacity to finish the bass line before offering Brian a shoulder shrug, giving Gerard a thumbs up as he snapped another photo.

“That was amazing!” Gee called as Bandit bowed to the imaginary audience, clapping at Bob as he brought the house lights back up to normal. “Thank you Bob!” she called, laughing as Mikey helped her off the stage, “You’re going to be a rock and roll star just like your mum aren’t you?” he asked and she shrugged, stumbling her way over to Gerard, “Mummy doesn’t sing, not like Daddy does” and ok, that got everyone’s attention, because Gerard never sung, well not since he got sober enough to remember that he /didn’t/ sing.

“Is that so?” Mikey smirked, raising an eyebrow at his older brother as Gerard pointedly crouched down to help Bandit into her tiny leather jacket before he straightened the headscarf he’d wound around her failed Mohawk. “Well we have a date with the frozen food aisle of the Stop n’ Shop, so, yes, Brian let me know if you need any changes” Gerard blinked, busying himself with picking Bandit up so that Mikey didn’t notice his all too obvious blush.  
He did of course and that made him wonder and if there was one thing that was dangerous, it was a Mikey plan.  
__

In his hurry to leave his apartment this morning Gerard had forgotten to get the apple slices together, which should have been a problem, but Bandit seemed rather fixated on leading todays shopping mission, which was only meant to be for pea’s but pushing her around in the trolley as she called out directions as if she were the captain on a ship was pretty fun. Plus he’d made them both paper hats from the price catalogues while she was deciding on her own cereal.

“I want the one with raisin’s in it!” she declared finally waving the packet of sultana bran at him, tipping her slightly too large hat back onto her head properly, she had to have the biggest because she was the captain, which meant that Gerard’s own much smaller one was perched pretty comically on top of his head, only adding to the crazed look he had going with his wild hair and glitter coated cheek. Bandit thought he looked brilliant and rather dashing.  
“You don’t want a colourful one or the one with marshmallows in it?” He asked utterly dumbfounded, his 4 year old daughter wanted breakfast food popular with old men due to its high fibre content? Bandit continued to nod, pointing towards the animal food aisle and Gerard shook his head.  
“Next stop frozen pea’s?” Gee asked, frowning down at the random assortment of things they had collected, they’d gone a little nuts in the party and stationary aisle and ok he was defiantly going to regret buying the confetti later but he was a sucker for the stuff and Bandit’s eyes had gone so wide when they’d found it. For some reason she’d been adamant that they go up and down every aisle, it wasn’t until they hit the laundry detergent section that Gerard had realised that she was looking for something or more likely, someone, because sure she liked old people food and avocado (gross, it was so slimy and green it looked like zombie brains) but no kid could actually want to look at laundry detergent. She’d shaken her head at his questioning and gotten excited over the fabric softener packets with ducks on them and well, alright they were pretty cute, who was he to judge?

Frank really wanted another beer, or okay, like 6 more beers, coffee would be good too, but beer was better and it was afternoon so he deemed alcohol a far more appropriate stimulant. He’d thought of hiding one at the back of the freezers but considered it altogether too dangerous with Pete on shift, he tended to turn up at the strangest times and catch Frank out on any and all of the shit he pulled. Pete didn’t care of course, but he had a lot of fun telling everyone else about it. Pete Wentz was a little bitchy gossip like that and Frank didn’t need ‘drunk at work’ on his already rather scarred record. Dragging at the old black jumper they were all forced to wear when they were on freezer duty Frank grumbled, stacking several boxes of fish fingers onto their shelf. It was pretty shit really, being put on freezer duty when he had to play later tonight, his hands were already aching like a bitch from all the practice he’d been putting in this week and the cold sure as fuck wasn’t doing anything to help.  
“Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeea’s!” a voice called from around the corner and Frank frowned for a moment, that sounded a hell of a lot like…“Frank!! Dad look, it’s Pretty Frank!” Bandit cried gleefully at her father who was, wait was he wearing a fucking pirate hat? Frank laughed, waving at Bandit from his ice filled hell. If he got the flu from this he was going to chuck a serious tantrum.  
“What? Your unicorn-oh” Gerard blinked, attempting to rearrange his features into what he hoped was a smile and not his usual slightly retarded quizzical look. He was pretty sure he failed but Frank seemed more interested in Bandit anyway, so alright, that wasn’t so bad. “Ahoy there me hearty!” Bandit called in a pretty excellent impersonation of a pirate, waving a carrot she’d decided was a sword at Frank as Gerard pushed her towards him.

“Fancy seeing you here, Captain?” Frank asked, receiving a pleased giggle from Bandit before she disappeared behind her too big hat, damn that kid was badass.

“Daddy my hats too big!” B called, dragging the paper contraption from her head as Frank pushed the door of the freezer shut, moving to take the paper hat she was offering him and slide it onto his head, yeah cool, it totally fit.

“So what member of your crew can I be?” Frank asked, as Gee removed his own smaller hat to give to Bandit, raising an eyebrow at the long smear of glitter on the guy’s cheek, seriously, who went out like that?  
Bandit pushed her carrot into her belt, which appeared to be made out of some kind of silk tie. “You can’t be the first mate, that’s Gee’s job, you could be the…” Bandit hummed, bitting her lip, turning to look at her father, “What do you think pretty Frank could be Daddy?” she asked, catching Gerard a little off guard.

“I uh” Gerard blinked looking mildly panicked as Bandit and a very amused looking ‘pretty’ Frank directed their attention at him. ‘I think Frank looks really nice in that ugly jumper’ he thought quickly but bit his tongue on the comment. He was rather sure saying local shop attendants looked pretty was all well and good for 4 year olds, not so much for grown men in their 30’s.

“Well logically Frank is staying put, so he’d be a trader, most Pirates while they did a lot of pillaging did have secure places where they stopped to trade goods and services, so Frank would probably be the owner of a trading post” Gee explained, sort of waving his hands around in what he hoped was an explanational sort of manner.  
“But that means he wouldn’t be on our ship” Bandit squeaked, looking at Frank with a worried expression, “I want pretty Frank on our ship, he can help us find things” She urged, confusing Gerard a little, because okay yes, well he could he supposed but why was she so adamant about this?

“Is there some reason you don’t want me on your ship?” Frank asked, barely disguising the giggles that were brewing in his gut, oh man this poor guy, he wasn’t sure who the kids mother was, but she defiantly got her outgoing personality from that side of the family.  
“I- of course not, you helped me find my daughter and not end up stealing some persons son who was wearing a dress, so of course I would want Frank” “Pretty Frank” Bandit corrected, causing Gerard to get even more flustered “Pretty Frank, I mean you, you on our ship, yes you can, ok, this is getting ridiculous all we have is a shopping cart” Gerard finished, earning himself a scowl from the two short, dark haired people before him. Great now ‘pretty’ Frank thought he was an idiot and Bandit appeared to be forming a similar opinion.  
“Shall we make him walk the plank Captain?” Frank asked raising an eyebrow as Bandit leaned back, scratching at an imaginary beard. “ I think we should give him another job, and then you could be first mate” Bandit pondered, grinning a little as Frank copied her motion, stroking his chin as he chewed on his lip ring, fuck Gerard was cute when he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Well how about to make up for your discriminating against my having a position on your ship and to repay me for my epic ‘where’s Bandit’ finding skills from yesterday you take me out for coffee huh?” Frank reasoned, shrugging easily and wow okay, so people actually fucking did that? Gerard’s expression went from panicked to plain distress. Not the effect Frank had been going for, though Bandit seemed to be in total agreement.  
Pete Wentz was a crazy mother fucker at the best of times, but when he decided that he liked you, well you were in for a whole world of bitchy pain. Patrick knew this better than anyone; after all he was here, on his afternoon off, pushing Pete around in a shopping trolley as he barked orders at his staff. Patrick didn’t even work here, he had a well-paying job as a music producer which he liked and did well at. So why was he in a supermarket pushing a 30 year old guy with the emotional range of a 10 year old around for kicks? Cause he loved him. Why did he love him? Yeah that was a question for another century because Patrick had tried and failed a bunch of times to figure out why he was so useless to fight Pete’s demands. Though the fact that he gave mind exploding blow jobs probably helped (like a lot). On this particular Friday Pete had discovered (decided) glitter was on sale (free), which meant that several large containers of it were now in his possession and he knew just what to do with them. As Frank rolled into view Pete grinned, excellent, he was talking to a cute boy, even better.

“Frankie!” Pete cried, as Patrick sighed, throwing Frank an ‘I’m so very sorry’ look as Pete urged them closer, “I have decided that your current get up of lumpy black woollen coverings are far too drab, so Patrick and I are here to bring a little sparkle to your ensemble” Pete sing songed, laughing a little as the cocky expression that had been gracing Franks adorable wee face slid into that of utter horror. He moved to run, as anyone would when Pete fucking Wentz was approaching you with a box full of glitter but Bandit and the trolley were in the way and Gerard was still sort of attempting to find his brain and then his tongue and any dignity he had left because some cute tattooed guy in a supermarket just asked him out for coffee and things like this just really didn’t happen to him. Then again having tubs of glitter dumped over his head didn’t usually happen to Frank and well, oh, ok that was a thing that just happened.  
Pete cackled as Bandit clapped, leaning down to throw some of their confetti at Pete, because why no, apparently there was some kind of insane person party in the frozen foods section that Frank and Gerard had crashed by accident.

“Well at least we match now?” Frank offered as Bandit continued to throw confetti back at Pete while Patrick tried to pull the trolley back before Frank killed them both. Pete just laughed and winked at Bandit, tipping an imaginary hat at her, “Keep it sparkly captain!” he trilled, falling back a little as Patrick moved the trolley a little too fast, muttering about locking Pete away in a day care centre where he actually belonged.  
“You’re covered in glitter… how does that mean that we match?” Gerard asked, a little annoyed that his final answer to ‘pretty’ Franks offer of beverages and possible casual sex was that pearl of wisdom. Then again he’d said words that meant things and that made actual sense so he was defiantly doing better than usual. He was also sort busy being amazed that someone could act so cool when they’d just had a craft stores worth of sparkles dumped over their head, was this a usual occurrence or something? Since when had supermarkets become so cool?

Frank grinned, leaning over a little to wipe some of the glitter from Gerard’s cheek as Bandit attempted to steal piles of it from his jumper, “You had it on your cheek, you didn’t know?” Frank replied, raising an eyebrow as he held up both hands to show the differences between the glittery products, shaking his head a little when some of the sparkly shit tried to fall into his eyes, causing a bit of a sparkle storm, enchanting Bandit even more.

Gerard sighed, glaring down at Bandit for a moment, “B, how longs that been there?” he asked, causing her to stop mid glitter toss and look about as guilty as a 4 year old bathed in glitter could “I wanted you to look pretty Daddy, like Frank, so you could be pretty together” She replied sweetly and great, his 4 year old was doing a better job of getting his love life together than he was.  
Frank had utterly lost it by this point and was holding onto the freezer door for pure life as he laughed so hard it hurt. He was rather sure this sort of thing didn’t happen to normal people, being glitter bombed by their boss while they try to pick up cute clueless fathers over packets of fish fingers, but fuck it, at least his life wasn’t boring right?  
“Great, alright, well, that was nice of you B, but Daddy needs to look tidy so he can do business” Gerard snapped, causing Frank to continue to laugh harder, cause yeah, okay he’d be more than happy to help Gerard ‘do business’ with or without the glitter.

“But Daddy I…” Bandit bit her lip as Gerard shook his head, his cheeks burning as he realised that awesome, the guys at the bar had seen him covered in glitter and hadn’t said anything either, was he just some kind of universal joke to the world at the moment? He really didn’t need this shit today. “Thank you for the, whatever it was and finding my daughter again, I greatly appreciate it” Gerard explained, causing Frank to wheeze a little as he reached up and shook his head.

“He dude, it’s cool, I mean you’ve got a kid right and you’re an artist? It’s totally normal, well it’s not, but it’s all good” it wasn’t working Frank could tell and really had no idea at this point how to save face for either of them.  
Gerard stood watching him for a moment, attempting to be polite before he turned to leave, Bandit sat at the bottom of the cart, staring mournfully at Frank as he waved goodbye to her, doing his best not to grin at the trail of glitter that the two of them created as they made their way towards the check outs.

“Good Job Frankie” he murmured to himself, turning to catch the raised eyebrows of an old lady trying to decide between peas with or without mint.

“I suggest mint, adds that crisp extra bite” Frank offered with a glittery grin, swinging open his freezer door once again, decidedly more cheerful than he’d been when he started.

__  
They’d never had a proper fight before, Bandit had thrown the occasional tantrum and yeah Gerard hadn’t been that pleased at the star spangled banner of Crayola doom that had appeared on his kitchen floor earlier in the week but nothing that had happened had ended in a full scale fight. Well not until today anyway.  
Gerard didn’t really know what to do either, he and Mikey had had disagreements, they were brothers of course they had, but nothing that had turned into anything long term. God nothing even all that short term really. He hadn’t meant to yell at her in the car, it wasn’t really her fault, fuck at this point Gerard couldn’t tell who’s fault any of this was. He was tired and stressed and embarrassed as all hell and that was a pretty lethal combination when paired with a 4 year old who had not gotten her way and was also in need of a serious nap.  
“Bandits not talking to me” Gerard sighed down the phone as Mikey attempted to say something in greeting; Gerard really needed to learn how to talk to people on the phone, seriously. Mikey rolled his eyes, waving at Alicia to turn her damn Halo game down, only gaining a laugh and another round of triumphant cries as she blew up a whole team of dudes headed her way, man he was glad she was married to him, she was going to be one hell of an ally when the zombie apocalypse came down around them.

“Give me a second, I have to go into the kitchen, Ace is playing Halo and destroying my delicate ear drums in the process” Mikey whined, moving into the kitchen. Grumbling a little he forced the coffee machine into action, listening to Gee as he did the same on his end.

“Coffee and brother chats, well it’s been far too long since we did this Mikeyway” Gerard joked, casting a worried glance at Bandits very firmly closed door, dragging a beaten up Next Gen mug out of the cupboard.

“I know it’s been what, hours? You boldly going?” Mikey asked, frowning before he pulled out his own cup, ladling sugar into the bottom.

“Don’t I always?” Gee asked, smiling down at the Star Trek mug his brother had bought him back in high school, how it’d managed to survive all this time was beyond him. “How about you?” he asked, fighting with the filter for a moment, considering tea for it’s pure convenience before being entirely horrified at himself. He was turning into Brian, this shit was so not okay.  
“Nah I’m buzzcocksing” Mikey replied, tapping the mug idly. Mikey had a ridiculous man crush on Simon Amstell, the host of never mind the buzzcocks. Alicia thought it was adorable, Gerard agreed that it was totally understandable, that guy had more sass and sex appeal in a jumper than any awkward British dude had right to.  
“So what happened?” Mikey murmured after the usual few minutes of silence, listening to Gerard breath wheezily down the line as he got his coffee machine into place and bubbling away.

“I yelled at her because she didn’t tell me that I had glitter on my face” Gerard sighed, wincing at little as he waited for Mikey to tell him off.  
“Dude neither did I, or Ray or Bob for that matter, we all thought it was kinda cute” Mikey supplied, really doing nothing for Gerard’s already sore conscience. Gerard plonked several sugar cubes into his coffee mug, placing one on his tongue to suck at thoughtfully.

“Yeah I know, it’s just, it’s been a shit day and I looked like an idiot in front of Frank” “The unicorn?” Mikey injected cause yeah getting upset about looking like a tool in front of a Unicorn was a bit weird even for Gerard.

“No pretty Frank, the guy at the store who helped me find Bandit yesterday, we ran into him today and, okay so he may have asked me out, before he had an entire tub of glitter dumped over his head, which was sort of weird, but he pulled it off, I mean he fucking pulled off getting glitter bombed by his boss, well I think it was his boss, anyway, he asked me out and I made myself look like a total idiot and I left without replying… I mean I think he asked me out, he could have just wanted to hang out, I mean he seemed nice like tha-“ “GERARD” Mikey snapped, breaking his brother out of the circles he was talking himself into, the tone of his voice had started to climb and that was never a good sign.

“Let me get this straight” Mikey breathed, waiting to hear Gerard do the same. “You met some cute guy, named Frank? He asked you out while covered in glitter and you fucked it up somehow and then took it out on B?”  
Gerard winced, almost burning the shit out of his hand as he juggled the coffee pot and his phone at the same time; somehow it seemed worse when Mikey laid it out like that. “Essentially, yes” he replied quietly, stirring his coffee a little too aggressively.  
“Have you apologised?” Mikey asked simply, blowing on the top of his coffee, listening for the yelp from Gerard to let him know that he’d had forgotten to do the same, would he ever learn?  
“She won’t talk to me, so I can’t” Gerard explained in a hiss, how did he manage to burn his mouth every fucking time? He paused frowning down at the pictures of Bandit riding her unicorn in a pirate hat that lay crumpled in front of him. He’d tried to slide it under her door but she’d just pushed it back.  
“The old draw her a comic didn’t work either huh?” Mikey asked, and for the millionth time Gerard wondered how the fuck he managed to read his mind. “I’m your brother dude, that’s how” he replied to the silence, quiet Gee was even more worrying than circular freak out talking Gerard.

“Nope she just drew an unhappy face in the corner and pushed it back under the door” Gerard replied, chewing at his lip as he started back at his too hot coffee, if only he had freeze breath, that’d totally solve this situation, though it could lead to some pretty weird problems in the bedroom, that was the thing with super powers though, you never read about what happened with them after hours.

“Gerard” Mikey warned practically hearing his brother’s brain go off on a tangent. “You both just need a bit of time apart, why don’t I send Licia over for the night and take you to Brian’s hmm? You’ve been doing posters for all the gig’s but never actually turning up to see any of them, come out, it’ll be good for both of you”  
He knew Mikey was right, to be honest Mikey being wrong was pretty damn rare and on those occasions it usually turned out that Mikey had actually been correct they just hadn’t listened to him enough in the first place to understand his meaning. Damn spiritual advising seer like little brother. That was meant to be Gerard’s job, being the eldest and all.

“Come on Gee, we miss you and the girls will have a ball, plus it’ll stop Alicia from banging on about all the baby talk for a while, it’s really sort of scary when women start getting clucky man, they want to go to Ikea and look at paint swatches, I’m just not okay with that sort of stuff” Mikey murmured before taking another sip of his appropriately warm beverage.  
Gerard huffed a little laugh out of his too tight chest, considering Mikey’s words. A night out would be nice, he hadn’t been out for months, shit was it months now? Between work and getting things ready for Bandit time had sort of run away from him.  
“B” Gerard called warily, listening to Mikey drink coffee down the phone, “Do you want to spend the night with Alicia?” The past hours radio silence continued for another few moments before a quiet and slightly watery “Yes” came through Bandits door and okay, Gerard could breathe again.  
“Lady time fixes everything, get changed and we’ll meet you at your place at 8 alright?” Mikey replied in a sort of distracted way that insinuated that Alicia was doing something far more interesting that playing Halo now and ew, nope, that was his brother and “Yeah I’ll see you then” Gerard finished, leaving his phone on the table as he watched Bandits door for a little longer, moving back to the living room to work on the dark horse sketches.  
~  
“Well don’t you scrub up nice?” Mikey cooed as Gerard bustled around his bedroom trying to find his other shoe, where the hell had it even gone? He’d been wearing them up until half an hour ago when he’d had a shower. Well he was pretty sure he had been, clothing was difficult like that, it never left a lasting impression, it was just there for the sake of being there so when it wasn’t his mind never lingered on its whereabouts.  
“I’d take that as a compliment if you didn’t mean it so literally” Gerard grumbled, letting out a triumphant yip as he found his shoe inside his briefcase, of course that’s where it would end up, where else?  
“You’ve got my number and b’s already eaten, so there’s snacks, well okay you know where the snacks are” Alicia rolled her eyes at him in a way that mirrored her husband’s own actions all too well. Then again humans started looking like their pets if they were together too long, so maybe the same thing happened with husbands and wives, Gerard didn’t know, he’d never had a husband or a wife for that matter.  
“We’re going to play Mario party” Bandit called from the couch, looking entirely adorable with her hair in braids (Alicia’s work, Gerard couldn’t braid to save his life) and her bright purple pj’s. Their fight was mostly forgotten, though the hesitation when she’d first come out of her room and hugged him was still resting a little heavily on Gerard’s heart. There had to be a first time for everything he supposed, next time he’d know what to do, at least he hoped to god he would. Angry Bandit was not something he wanted to see repeated.  
With another set of cuddles and a little more worrying on Gee’s end and a lot of bouncing on Bandits Mikey pushed Gerard out of the house and into his car, gaining a raised eyebrow from Gerard.

“Not drinking hmm?” he enquired, lighting a cigarette as soon as they had exited the building, fuuuuuuck that was nice. Damn parental codes with making smoking a bad thing, sometimes he hated the medical industry for all it’s good work on smoking related research and the like, they were really doing a very good job of taking the fun out of nicotine for everyone.  
“I don’t drink on the job and I’m not letting you drive my car again, not after last time, you get too damn distracted and I really like my side view mirrors, they do an excellent job with the whole, helping me to see oncoming traffic thing.  
Gerard shrugged, pulling his leather jacket a little closer in on himself as he slid into the car, wincing a little as black flag came through the speakers so loudly he was pretty sure Greg Gann’s voice was now permanently burnt into his ear drums. “Had your hearing aids turned down did you?” Gerard called earning him a middle finger and curse from his brother as he turned around and began to back out onto the street.  
The drive to the club was peppered with general gossip Mikey had gathered over the past few days, the guy knew everyone in the industry and then some, so he was never short on news both good and bad, the bad stuff was always the best though. It was nice, the normalcy of the conversation, the slight bitchiness and laughter that followed. Gerard’s world got a little over stuffed with fantasy sometimes, a Mikeyway reality check was a needed remedy more often than he cared to admit. Thankfully Mikey knew this too and doled them out as often as he could.  
“And then she said that she’d never intended for him to find out, that it was the last time she was going to see the other two and that it was all going to have been something in the past that neither of them would ever have to think about!” Mikey cackled, causing his brother to follow in suit.

“I mean, it would have been bad enough walking in on one guy banging your wife, but finding her in there with twins? Fuck man, that shit’s just fucking intense” Mikey finished, waving at Karl as he nodded them in, much to the complaint of several scenesters waiting in line outside the club.  
Brian’s bar was a pretty decently sized space, but packed full of a couple hundred people and a band already slamming their way through a set it became a hell of a lot smaller. The space was hot with bodies and thick with the sounds of crashing guitars, hitting the bar Gerard sighed, the usual calling for a beer to settle his nerves and draw him into the pack crawling at the bottom of his spine.

“Two diet cokes!” Mikey called, patting his brother on the back as he watched his expression shift and then shut off completely. “You’re going to be fine Gee” he called over the drone of vocals, smiling a little as the band finished their song to a roar of applause.

“That’s the Distillers, you did some stuff for them last year, I think Sam’s still got the poster up in their van, they fucking love that thing” Mikey grinned, nodding at Lambert as he passed their drinks over, waving excitedly at Gerard before he disappeared down the bar a little to serve another set in the endless line of gig goers, the place really was going off tonight.  
Moving over to a slightly more secluded spot, Mikey lay their drinks down before them. Gerard had always been a stand at the back of the club and sulk sorta guy, Mikey knew that, so he tended to snag them a table as far from the front as possible in a compromise of sorts. “So you wanna tell me about glitter explosion Frank?” Mikey grinned, clinking his glass against Gee’s as he took a sip.

“Did you know that the tradition of glass toasting was created so as to make sure that person who offered you the beverage was not poisoning you? They would make sure to press the glasses or goblets together hard enough to allow liquid from each cup to spill into one another, that way if anyone hesitated before drinking you would know that they had laid a trap” Gerard offered before disappearing behind his drink, focusing on the stage as the lead singer announced their final song.  
“Well that’s pretty interesting Nat Geo Discovery but in no way answering my actual question” Mikey drawled, raising an eyebrow and keeping it there as Gerard pretended to be totally into the song that was playing, even though he obviously had never actually heard it before.

“Come on, I give you gossip all the time, you haven’t so much as looked twice at someone since you poured tea on yourself at your old favourite Starbucks when flippy haired art dude smiled at you that one time” and yeah, great, thanks for the reminder of that Mikey. Gerard sighed, chewing on a piece of ice as he watched the band say their thanks and wander off stage, he liked this moment best, watching the way people changed, snapping out of the strange trance that the music had washed into them. Their postures sagging feet moving them away before their minds had truly identified their next destination.  
“It’s nothing important, there’s a guy, he seems nice, he likes B which is good” Gerard shrugged, as Mikey nodded and waved to several people who passed, muttering his apologies as he moved to give Gerard his full attention. “Those were some of the Pencey Prep guys, they’re on next, Brian gave Iero your details so he could get in contact with you, it’ll be good for you to see them play actually, their energy’s pretty insane, I can see it giving you some serious inspiration” Mikey replied wiggling his eyebrows before he got back to the task at hand. “But no, yes, boys, tell me all about the boys”  
Gerard sighed but explained the first shopping trip, loosing bandit, almost stealing some boy in a dress from his mother, which Mikey thought was too funny for words and had to take several moments out of their conversation to laugh himself stupid, Gerard didn’t think that almost stealing someone’s kid was all that amusing, but maybe from an outsiders point of view things were different. He was up to the moment in which Frank had been coated in glitter by his boss when the roar of the crowd and lowering of the lights announced the next band, causing their conversation to draw to a halt.  
“Hey New Jersey, thanks’ for coming out tonight and seeing the rest of the guys, we’re Pencey Prep and this song’s called Trying to escape the inevitable” the lead singer called, grinning at the group and huh, wait Gerard knew that grin, he knew that glitter, because yes /Iero/ was pretty Frank, who happened to still be rather sparkly and holding a guitar while wearing tight jeans and a black shirt and that was defiantly a half sleeve, which Gerard defiantly hadn’t noticed under the ugly glitter coated cardigan earlier today and daymn.  
“You’re going to love these guys” Mikey called as the guitars burst into life, Frank pressed his lips to the microphone and opened his mouth and fuck. Trying to escape the inevitable? That was one way to put it. God Gerard was so screwed.


	3. The one where Frank works at a coffee store with Gabe and William but Gerard doesn't know that (yet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard makes things worse for himself because that's what he's good at, Bandit goes through a strange lifestyle change and Gabe plays some pokemon.
> 
> “But Gee you are a total social retard, the sooner prospective man friends know this, the more likely you are to fall for someone that isn’t a total douche canoe” Bob replied, giving Gerard a fake sunshine grin before he took another long drink of his coffee, he was going to need a buckets worth of this shit to get through the evenings melodrama he could feel it in his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is a couple of days away from completion, just realized I hadn't posted this up yet //waytogoidiot. So here it is Chapter 3. It's still a little raw and I am sorry about that my dears. <3 <3

~“You know this doesn’t count as taking me out for drinks right?” ~

“How does someone like me run out of coffee?” There was definitely no coffee left in the house. Not even the shitty tiny packets of instant that Gerard usually stole from his hotel in Portland when he flew out to see Scott. He vaguely remembered burning his way through the last of those during a project a few weeks back that had caused him to get a lot of glue in his hair and made him look like the bad side of a Tim Burton character (not so great for shopping adventures).Gee could have sworn that he’d at least kept one for emergencies though.

“Because your brain is too filled with boys to prioritize needed shopping options?” Lyn offered taking a pointedly loud slurp of her own beverage just to shit him off.  
“Fuck you, I never gave you shit for forgetting stuff when you had a brain full of baby” Gerard bit back, his bitchy side was raising its head good and proper,I mean was he going to have to drink tea? Fuck that.

“Yes because I was carrying your unborn child” Lyn replied easily, grinning to herself as she pictured the shit mess that he was creating in his caffeine crazed search.He’d probably upload a bitchy picture of it on twitter later once his brain had enough caffeine in it to locate and use social media properly, for now Lyn was impressed that he’d managed to answer his phone and hold conversation for this long.

“It was only mine because you wanted a cool artistic child who had pretty hair and pale skin” Gerard muttered trying to fit his head into the back of his tiny Ikea cupboard while still on the phone, which totally wasn’t going to work.

“Oh the huge amounts of love and trust I have for you have nothing to do with it?” Lyn replied evenly, there was no way in hell Gee was going to win this argument and they both knew it, even if his slow as shit sleepy brain hadn’t registered it yet.

“Maybe a little, but don’t try and palm this off on that much good will, there were plenty of other candidates Lyn” He didn’t mean it of course, but under caffeination and cigarette rationing didn’t look good on anyone at 9 in the morning.

“Oh shush you like being told you’re pretty and you know it, talking about pretty people how is Frank? And no I don’t mean the unicorn” she clarified with more snark than was entirely necessary for such an early hour of the day.

“Oh god don’t even start on that” Gerard snapped as he continued to bang things around just for the hell of it, if he couldn’t get coffee he’d at least work some of his mid-morning frustrations out on the stupid things he’d amounted in his cupboards. Where had all this crap come from anyway?

“Come onnnnnnn I don’t get any good gossip on the road, we’re all too old and married to have any scandals, you gotta give me some juice man” Lyn whined, doing a near perfect impression of Gerard’s earlier tone when having a whinge about his lack of coffee, if Gerard wasn’t feeling so utterly shit would have actually been impressed.

“He’s in a band…” Gee offered, knowing that she’d go elsewhere for information if he didn’t at least give her a taste of what was going on and that would never go down well, Mikey was nosey at the best of times, when he and Lyn teamed up they were near unstoppable in their pursuit to fuck around with Gerard’s life.

“Oh yeah?” Lyn replied a little too enthusiastically, doing a deliberately shit job of masking the excitement in her tone, she was a rock star for fucks sake. This should not be the highlight of her day.

“A band that Brain wants me to do posters for” Gerard finished, giving up on his mission of caffeination to sit and stare at his coffee machine miserably.

“That’s good! It’ll stop you lurking around staring at him like a creep and make you actually, you know, talk to him. Stop looking at your coffee machine like that, it’s not its fault your under used junk got in the way of correct grocery collection” Lyn scolded, enjoying the quiet huff that Gerard breathed out in reply.

“Yeah but the bands really good” he whined, continuing to stare at his coffee machine defiantly.  
“Your point?” Lyn hummed, frowning at Jimmy as he chased someone around the car park, they were too far away for her to be able to pick out the other person, though Lyn was pretty sure they didn’t actually know them. If Jimmy had started to chase random civilians around truck stops they were really going to need to cut his sugar back again, this shit was going to get him killed someday.

“He’s cool and in a band and cute and can pull off being glitter bombed” Gerard sighed, tapping the lid of a random container of strawberry essence, why did he even have essence of strawberries? When could he possibly ever need that? It smelt fucking awful too.

“So he’s good with soul crushing embarrassment, you’re perfect for one another!” Lyn added after a moment’s hesitation, watching as Kitty got off their bus and dragged the lead singer back onto it, sighing as Jimmy made noise about it but didn’t exactly fight her on it, there was no point she was twice as strong as him. Female drummers were pretty excellent like that.

“Oh well thank you so much for the vote of fucking confidence for your information I-uh, Lyn? For fuck sake” Gerard snapped, dropping his phone onto the table in front of him, glaring at everything in site for a few minutes before he tried her number a couple of times.

She’d forgotten to charge her phone again he supposed, life on the road scattered even the most organised of minds. A text half an hour later from Jimmy’s number confirms his suspicions and promises to call back in the afternoon to talk to Bandit. This does very little to placate his grumpy toddler as she wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later, her hair a giant frizzy mess of doom due to the braids Alicia had put into there the night before. A second text bounced through moments later causing the morning to shift several notches up the Fuck this ladder.

‘Hey so I figured a txt would be better than a phone call from a random number or w/e. Brian Schechter gave me your number, told me to get in contact with you about some album art. So give me a call if you’ve got the time. Cheers –Frank (Pencey Prep)’

“Bandit pack your things, we’re running away to coffee land, bring some crayons cause we’re in for the long haul” Gerard called, causing Bandit to stick her head out of her room which she’d returned to after staring moodily at the table for several long minutes, her temper didn’t have the same staying power like her fathers did.

“But I thought we were going to look at comics?” She asked, frowning a little as she tried to flatten her hair down a little, the plaits had caused it to boof up to near Afro proportions, which was totally not her scene.

“We will, after Daddy drinks his weight in coffee, it’ll be fun though, you can draw and I can draw and you can get a sausage roll if you like” the look in his daughter’s eyes shifted from confused and mildly grumpy to that of a maniac. Bandit was sort of obsessed with sausage rolls. Gerard couldn’t figure out why, there was nothing all together special about the ones that she usually ate and she wasn’t a meat pie fan either, so it wasn’t the simple allure of nameless animal wrapped in pastry that caught her. It was something else, something strange and fantastic and hey who the hell was he to judge, he collected imported jams with entirely unreadable labels. Sausage roll obsessions were sort of normal in comparison to a love of foreign congealed fruit.  
B’s still pretty grumpy about the Afro she’s rocking this morning. Gerard sort of loves it like this and loses another hour of his morning drawing sketches of her as she attempts to decide what to wear for the day and eats her way through two bowls of her old people cereal. Gerard ignores several pressing emails from Scott about the new proposed ending for the final comic in the first series of Umbrella Academy. There’s something new brewing in the back of his brain, a character and possibly even a story line. Gerard’s trained himself pretty well to stay on task, but he knows the makings of something really good when he feels it and this is defiantly headed that way. He hasn’t felt anything like this since the start of umbrella and it’s invigoration in a manner that even instant coffee can’t replicate.

“Daddy how about this?” Bandit calls, entering the kitchen in a totally insane fluffy jacket over her tiny jeans and skull t-shirt. It looked like she had stolen it right off the back of a Wookie.

“Jacket doesn’t work with that outfit” Gerard hummed somewhat distractedly, glancing back up a few moments later to find his daughter scowling at him ominously.

“Ah B I’m sorry I’m being a killjoy, you know how I get when I haven’t had any coffee, why don’t you try your leather jacket and I’ll start getting ready too hmm?” he offered, frowning down at his page where he’s scrawled ‘killjoy’ in the corner, adding fabulous in front of it as an afterthought.  
Gerard is tempted to stop by the Starbucks around the corner but it’s a Thursday and that’s flippy haired dude’s double shift. Gerard shouldn’t still know this, but as he drives past he catches a glimpse of the cute guy in question behind the counter and keeps on driving. It’s too late in the day for him to relive such an embarrassing encounter without caffeine to shield him from the worst of it. The flippy haired guy would probably be totally nice and maybe he’d forgotten about it by now, though how often you watched someone pour coffee all over themselves while babbling about liking your new haircut Gerard didn’t know. Probably never, because who the fuck did that? Well Gerard did that, so that made one and it was like just over a month ago. So yeah too soon, way too soon.

“You alright daddy?” Bandit asked, watching her Father as he cringed down into his seat a little, hanging a left as he headed towards a little indie coffee store Mikey raved about. There would probably be hoards of glaring hipsters everywhere but at least none of them had seen him publicly humiliate himself… Then again, some of them may have been at that Starbucks. Fuck.  
“I’m fine B, just uh, thinking about grown up things” Gerard replied absent mindedly, though really there was nothing ‘adult’ about the way he conducted himself in relationships, well not even relationships, buying coffee from someone was not a relationship, not really. Flippy haired duded did give him some pretty great discounts though and there was that time that he gave him a gingerbread man last Christmas.

“CAN I HAVE IT WITH TOMATO SAUCE?!” And okay there seemed to be a whole section of this conversation Gerard was not paying attention to. Zoning out over coffee boys who don’t even like you while your daughter rants about baked goods isn’t very good fatherly behavior really and Gerard chides himself over it for a moment before he realizes that he’s actually zoning out even more now. Good job Gerard, good fucking job. Then again it’s really the lack of coffee’s fault, which he was making positive steps to fix. Silver linings right?

Pulling into the car park Gerard killed the engine and half fell out of the car in a rush to catch bandit as she pulled off her seat-belt and threw open her own door, almost taking the side of the car beside them out. “B! Just wait, get your drawing book, I need to get my pads and pens!” Had life always been this hard? Gerard was pretty sure it hadn’t.

The store, a strange little independently run place, was mostly empty, it was still a little early for the lunchtime crowd and the Starbucks around the corner tended to draw a lot of people away. The owner seemed pretty alright with this though, lounging against the counter talking to the pretty long haired boy at the coffee machine. What was it with flippy haired boys and working in coffee stores? Was it some rule that Gerard was unaware of that all coffee stores must be at some point in the week manned by attractive men with good hair who caused Gerard to become a babbling mess?

“Hi uh…” Gerard paused as the dark haired guy behind the counter turned and stood up properly and okay, wow, he was huge, did they really make people that tall? Gerard blinked for a moment as bandit bounced beside him, giggling a little as /Gabe!!:D/ As his name tag announced looked down at her, pulling a face going cross eyed before meeting Gerard’s gaze.

“Can I have a coffee, well a Latte, a ven-big one” Gerard finished quickly as pretty long haired dude behind the coffee machines eyebrows sort of rippled with rage. Independent coffee houses never coped well with his Starbucks slip ups, it wasn’t his fault though, he was a sucker for sugar and comfy couches and they always promised and then delivered both of those requirements. Yes they were an evil corporation and every single store was the same, but he loved Starbucks for that in a weird way.

“Oh and a chocolate milk and a sausage roll, a big one, if you’ve got it thanks” Gabe sort of blinked at him for a few moments before grinning and ringing up his order. “We’ve got some giant ones, so I’ll heat that up and bring it all out, I’ll bring the sauce too” he winked, causing bandit to sort of squeak with joy beside him, seriously how was the answer to all life’s questions sausage rolls? Man he wanted to be a kid again.

Gerard handed over the money to Gabe and /*William*/ giving the latter a gentle smile as he passed the coffee machine, rather thankful that his eyebrows of death had settled down to what looked to be his usual ‘the fuck I care’ stance. Indie coffee house people were really fucking intense sometimes, shit.

“Daddy these chairs and huuuuuuuuuge” Bandit sung, laughing as she climbed onto a monstrous looking arm chair, Gerard took its twin, sinking down into it in reply, sighing gently as the sound of coffee grinding sung in his ears. The world was starting to make sense again, thank the heavens.

“Much better than staying at home B?” Gerard asked, laughing a little as she nodded and began to set up her crayons and paper around her, smiling at her father as he began to do the same with his own art supplies.

The two of them settled into a happy silence, William brought their drinks out for them, complimenting Bandit on her drawing ability and gaining himself a picture of a blue unicorn in a pirate hat eating pea’s to put up on his locker in the break room and a new best friend. Gerard smiled as he watched the two of them chatter, as ever amazed at his daughters innate ability to make friends with each and every person that she seemed to meet. It was just as well really, considering how terrible Gee was when it came to general social situations.

Things were going well, Bandit was happy, Gerard had coffee that was actually really fucking tasty, even without the sugar filled syrup he usually had in it. He was getting into a good drawing groove still working on the Killjoys idea from earlier. He liked the idea of a group of people called the Killjoys,glancing out the window lazily he noted a couple of kids sticking band posters to an old post box and began to doodle. Creating his own postal box, spray painted and surrounded by weird bits and pieces, writing ‘wish you were here’ across the top before making a note ‘ode to the dead?’ biting his lip he moved back to add further embellishment’s and sketch in some desert around it.

Bandit’s food turned up pretty quickly and it should have been fine, she would have her golden sausage roll of happiness and joy and Gerard would steal a little when she wasn’t looking and order another coffee. But then Frank happened. Which was sort of looking to be the by line in Gerard’s Autobiography “oh god my life what is it”~ the life and times of an awkward artist who shouldn’t be allowed to talk to other human beings or so much as leave his house ever again.  
“You know this doesn’t count as taking me out for drinks right?” Frank explained, sounding all too amused with himself as he lay Bandit’s sausage roll down in front of her.

“Cause I get coffee for free here anyway” Frank shrugged, ignoring the pointed “NO YOU JUST DON’T PAY FOR THEM” William bitched at him from behind the coffee machine, nodding towards a very shell shocked looking Gerard’s empty coffee cup. “You want another one?”

Why was Frank here? Why was frank wearing a cute little apron with band buttons all over it and a too tight black t-shit that showed off a lot of his ink and all of the muscles that he’d obviously toned while throwing himself around like a rock god onstage over the many years in which he must have been playing guitar. Did god hate Gerard? Was that it? Was he punishing him for all of the years of fuck, Gerard didn’t even know it wasn’t like he drowned kittens or ran over old ladies. He just drew shit, how was that even a punishable offense?

“We ran out of coffee at home pretty Frank” Bandit supplied usefully as she began the rigorous process that was distributing exact equal amounts of sauce across her sausage roll. “But he didn’t want to go and buy anymore, so we came here instead, which is nice, because you are here and Daddy is here” Bandit finished, biting her tongue a little as she tried to get the last drops of sauce from her squeezie packet.

‘This song is called escaping the inevitable’ Gerard blinked, noting the bubble of hysterical laughter that was sitting at the base of his chest. “No, yes, you can, do you, not, did you quit, the” Gerard breathed for a moment before attempting to form an actual coherent sentence.

“How many jobs do you even have?”

What the fuck was that? Out of the hundreds of possibilities that could come out of his mouth and he said that? Not ‘Hey nice to see you again, funny story, I saw you at a gig last night, you were great’ or ‘oh wow I didn’t know you worked here too, funny coincidence right?’ No there was nothing funny about the way Gerard seemed to have turned into a total asshole. ‘This is not how you woo boys Gerard’ he heard Lyn chiding inside his brain, shaking his head a little to get the damn noise out.

“Three” Frank replied simply, shrugging a little as he sunk down onto the floor between Bandit and Gerard’s chairs, leaning his head back against the little table that held Gerard’s empty mug. Gerard’s moronic babbling seemed to have no effect on him, maybe Lyn was right. He really was perfect for him.

“I’m in a couple of bands as well, so I don’t get to sleep much, it’s worth it though you know? Getting to really try at the shit that you want? You’d get that, being an artist and such, that must be pretty great” Frank smiled a little, yawning as Bandit finally took her first blissful bite, humming in joy as she chewed and watched the two men beside her out of the corner of her eye. Could her plans finally be working?

“Yeah, it’s demanding, but it was always my dream, so I guess that’s pretty good” Gerard pondered, trying to not get sucked into blatantly staring at the beautiful man strewn out beside him, Frank was seriously pretty, so that was really fucking hard.

“Gaaaaaaaaabe, I’m taking my lunch cause my friends are here” Frank called, grinning as Gabe grunted a yes in reply, never looking up from the Gameboy he was playing. Gabe was the best boss ever, it was sort of too bad that he was so whipped with William and only had a few shifts a week to spare; this place beat the hell out of the Stop N Shop. “Two coffee’s please Billy, you know how we take them” Frank chuckled as he listened to William bitching at Gabe as he made the coffee’s, completely sure that Gabe was not taking in a word that was said.

“He doesn’t even get a lunch break on a 4 hour shift” Gabe shrugged, “Said he could, so now he does” the bleeping sounds that hinted at an imminent Pokémon battle broke across the small space and Frank knew that he’d gotten away with it, Gabe was useless to the world when he was playing his way through his Pokémon back catalog.

“So what are you lovely people up to today?” Frank asked Bandit as she attempted to force far too much food into her face at once and then respond. She only really managed forming half words at best until Gerard warned her about manners, causing her to chew aggressively at him.

“We’re going to look at some comics when we’re done here and then out to dinner with friends, though we should probably fit a nap in there somewhere” Gerard replied, frowning a little as he tried to work out a relevant time for napping.

“Yeah man, I’m super cranky if I don’t have my afternoon nap and milk to follow” Frank nodded as Bandit laughed, holding her plate up in offering to Frank. Gerard blinked for a few more moments before laughing himself, entirely too late and quietly. Well that was cool.

“Would you like to share my lunch?” Bandit asked holding out her fork so that Frank wouldn’t have to get his lovely fingers dirty, after all they had so many wonderful pictures drawn on them.

Frank smiled but shook his head, taking his coffee from William gratefully, “Thank you B, but I don’t eat meat, you should finish it yourself anyway, you need to eat lots so you can grow big and strong” Frank explained before disappearing behind the huge mug in his hands, for all his bitchiness William made one of the best cups of coffee Frank had ever drunk.

“Why don’t you eat meat? Isn’t everyone supposed to eat meat? Are you sick?” Bandit asked, looking all tiny and horrified and cute.Frank shook his head, almost spilling coffee everywhere in his haste to reply to her. “Oh no sweetie I’m not sick, I just don’t like eating animals”

If Bandit had looked upset before, it was nothing on how she looked now, Gerard was pretty sure someone had just told her that Santa Clause, the tooth fairy and Hogwarts were all total lies and that she’d never get to eat chocolate or see her unicorn again.

“But I don’t want to eat animals, animals are nice, unicorns are animals, why do I have to eat animals, why did you make me eat animals?!” Bandit cried, turning to look at Gerard with horror and tears in her eyes. Which he was like in no way fucking prepared for, at all, ever, in the history of his life from now until the end of the world. He was going to kill Frank and then sell his body parts on the black market so he could afford to get Bandit a real unicorn.

“No it’s, it’s not something that, when you’re a kid, it’s, they’re not like Frank, the unicorn, it’s different, their dream when they grow up is to be a sausage roll…” Gerard explained desperately as his eyes flicked between glaring at Frank and trying to seem supportive for Bandit, should he hug her or get her a salad? Fuck he didn’t know, did this even happen to normal people?

“Why would an animal want to grow up to be a sausage roll?” Bandit asked, sniffing a little as William turned up out of nowhere with a plate of smarty cookies, stuffing them into Frank’s hands before disappearing again, he didn’t like Frank all that much, but no one should have to deal with weeping toddlers or whatever age she was, no matter how cute the guy with her was.  
Bandit blinked at the cookies for a moment before picking one up and looking at it, “Are these made of animals?” She asked turning to look at her Dad, he looked sad too, which wasn’t nice, why did sausages rolls have to go and ruin everything like this?

“Wel-“”No” Gerard interjected as Frank considered explaining the process of eggs and milk to Bandit, promptly shutting up when Gerard sent him a glare so fierce Frank was a little surprised it hadn’t physically hurt. Ok so he was doing amazingly well on the smooth talking thing today, good job Iero.

Bandit resettled herself down to eat her plate of cookies once Frank had taken away the sausage roll and made Gerard promise to not make her eat any more pretty nice animals, ever again. Gerard quietly wondered if that would translate to things like fish fingers, but ended up deciding to cross such bridges when he came to them.

“The answer to all life’s questions and woe’s was sausage rolls, now what am I supposed to give her?” Gerard grumbled from behind his new cup of coffee, really not liking the way this day was headed. Next thing Frank would magically figure out who he actually was and start pestering him about band posters. Fuck how was he going to deal with this? Frank would have to figure it out eventually, unless Gerard ran away to France or something, Bandit would totally suit France and Lyn could like, go on a bunch of world tours or something, their child would be cultured, wasn’t that a good thing?

“A clean conscience in the long term that will allow her to reflect on the fact that she is no longer assisting the harm of adorable animals?” Frank answered without thinking, breaking Gerard out of his French day dreams. Frank winced as Gerard turned what could only be explained as the queen of all bitch faces at him, Frank was pretty surprised that he hadn’t spontaneously burst into flames by this point.

“If all of her teeth fall out and she becomes a diabetic I’m blaming you” Gerard protested as he watched his daughter eat her lunch of fucking cookies, which yeah, he was /so/ not paying for. She wasn’t crying anymore which was something.

“Yeah, no, oh, yeah that would suck, sorry” Frank winced, hiding behind his phone as he fired off another round of text messages to Brian.

“Sorry about being sort of distracted man, I’m waiting to hear back from this artist dude about cover art for my bands new album” Frank shrugged a little, wiggling to sit up a little straighter and get an eyeful of whatever Gerard happened to be drawing at the time.

“We’ve got like no money so it’s sort of a good faith thing, which always makes it harder, I mean I totally understand that they’re probably busy and not entirely keen to do a bunch of work for no more pay off than some free merch and life long ‘on the door’ tickets for a band they’ve never even heard of. S’all we got to offer though” Frank scratched the back of his head, knocking the toes of his bashed up converse together a few times, smiling as they said ‘fuck you’ each time they touched together.

“Brian, he’s the guy who runs ‘Brian’s’ round the corner, told me the dude is solid and totally amazing at what he does, so I’m super fuckin keen you know? Might send him another text, though do you think that would be pushing it? Sent him one this morning but you’re an artist, I mean you get all focused on something and probably don’t notice your phones right?” Frank asked, half way through tapping out another message to Gerard.

“They probably left their phone at home or it went dead or something, maybe you should email them, yeah you should get their email” Gerard replied quickly, moving to get all of his shit together so quickly he dropped his pencils fucking everywhere.  
“Woah dude, are you alright?” Frank asked, frowning as Gerard tried to bend down to grab at the scattered mess before them, red cheeked and bright eyed. What was with this guy seriously?

“Yeah, I’m, I’m fine, I just hadn’t noticed the time, till I saw you texting, we’re late” Gerard explained quickly, throwing a ‘DO NOT QUESTION ME’ look at Bandit which caused her to stop what she was doing, holding the cookie mid-air as her mouth hung open, her eyes wide and questioning.

“You’re late for the comic book store? What is there some new order coming in or something? They don’t close for another like 8 hours you know?” Frank replied, laying his phone on the table mid text to help Gerard collected the last of his things and drag way too much money out of his pocket to leave on the table.

“It’s, time, schedules you know?” Gerard explained helpfully, nodding at Bandit to get her own things together, watching out of the corner of his eye as she did so quickly and quietly way too confused by all of this to complain.

“Look dude I’m really sorry about turning your kid into a vegetarian, I mean she probably won’t remember past tomorrow” “I will” Bandit chirped in gently, bending down to get one of her crayons from under the sofa.“Okay” Frank replied, seriously unsure as to how to deal with these two obviously crazy but still rather excellent human beings, who he seemed to be constantly scaring away. How did he manage to be this stupid all the time?

“But I have loads of good recipes, super-fast and easy ones too, I could teach you some if you like?” Frank offered, as Gerard paused to check Bandit had everything, nodding to Frank as he bent down to leave the twenty on the table.

“Yeah, cool, thanks, well, we have to run” Gerard explained his eyes darting across Frank rather than settling on any one point as he took Bandits hand and steered her towards the exit, calling goodbye to pretty Frank and the others, utterly dumbstruck by her father’s entirely strange behavior.  
__  
They never made it to the comic book store, they didn’t even make it to the stop n shop, which was ridiculous because the entire reason that he was avoiding it and had gone to the other coffee shop was to avoid Frank who had fucking been there anyway. Then again considering his luck Frank would magically have appeared on shift at the supermarket and Bandit would run off again on some mighty pilgrimage into the great depths of the frozen food section. Forcing Frank and Gerard to put aside their differences (which Gerard reminded himself Frank actually had no idea that they had) (he must think he was a total spaz) to save her from a frozen yoghurt avalanche or the usual good ‘ol hypothermia, though that wouldn’t be half as fun as a freeze dried dairy catastrophe.

So they just ended up back at home, which was fine because Gerard had drunk a lot of coffee while out and Bandit had eaten way too much sugar so neither of them were really fit to talk to strangers or anyone that could be even mildly explained as ‘normal’ at this point. Bandit committed herself to building the best blanket fort ever seen and promptly fell asleep after creating the first two sections involving all bar one of Gerard’s kitchen chairs and the entire lounge suite. The sugar crash hit her hard and had her snoring from the lounge room by 2pm.  
Gerard settled himself into a space he created around the mess of his earlier coffee discovery mission, turning out sketches of knuckles with Halloween inked across them, a short man in a green vest, yellow and black shirt and a Frankenstein mask.  
New ideas had a habit of taking up his entire world and it wasn’t until Mikey let himself into the apartment and snapped on the kitchen light that Gerard noticed he had been sketching in partial darkness.

“I thought we were meeting at Yum Cha?” Gerard asked, frowning a little as he erased the lines of the jacket he had been sketching onto a character he had ‘party poison’ written beside.  
Mikey huffed a chuckle in reply, shifting some of the junk out of the way as he juggled Gerard’s spare key back into his pocket as he dumped the groceries down onto the bench.

“Brian figured you’d lose track of time and would have to bail out too early with B if we went out” Mikey shrugged, pulling supplies out of the brown paper bags, depositing a large bag labelled coffee down beside his brother. “This is the last time I do this for you, it will not become a habit, stop dodging Frank”

Gerard sighed, before looking up at Mikey with a loving smile, “I love you by the way Mikeway” Gerard cooed, gaining the first of what was sure to be many eye roll’s from Mikey. “Oh god, you’re getting punny, you’ve gone too long with coffee or cigarettes, do I need to call mum?” he asked dryly, ducking down into the fridge to load it with milk and eggs and cheese, utterly appalled by Gerard’s general lack of food, what in the hell did he feed his kid?

“And I am not dodging Frank, I ran into him today actually, at that tiny coffee shop you love so much” Gerard replied, swatting his brothers hands away from the coffee machine, filling it himself before plugging it in and snapping it on, oh god he loved the sound of coffee brewing in his apartment.

“A wild coffee appeared? You actually went there? If only I had known that total social suicide was all that was required to stop you visiting the evil coffee corp, I would have tipped your coffee all over you years ago” Mikey laughed, cleaning around his brother as he got cups and sugar ready for them both. “Oh man did you see William and Gabe have a fight? It’s beautiful, Gabe had them put a patch of astro turf in so that they could stand in grass when they ‘battled’ I am pretty sure he even has a cap to turn backwards, that guys love for Pokemon is endless” the youngest Way giggled, remembering the last time he had been there. William had thrown a total hissy fit and dumped a bottle of milk over Gabe’s chest (he was too damn tall to reach his head) and had stormed out mid coffee order when Gabe had agreed to let some guy pay for his coffee orders by playing him a song on his guitar. (Safe to say no one had any idea how that store actually stayed open) .

“Yeah very fucking funny, not everyone is lucky enough to meet their dream woman in the smoking line outside some super-secret gig alright” Gerard grumbled back, frowning at a packet of what seemed to be Japanese crackers in his hands, they looked like crackers but they were shaped sort of like clouds and nothing on the packet was in English, he really needed to stop buying this kinda shit.

“William? He was cranky, but no Gabe just stayed behind the counter and let Frank not work and drink free coffee, well I guess considering how much I paid for it all I bought him coffee, does that mean we had a date…” Gerard finished, sort of wishing he hadn’t said the last of it out loud.

Mikey rolled his shoulders, cramming as much stuff as he could back into Gerard’s cupboard, he really needed to take him on another trip to Ikea to get some bigger ones, the kitchen did not have suitable storage for one let alone two. “You’ve got a perfectly cute glittered covered band boy at your finger tip’s Gerard, if you are too socially awkward to go and get him it’s not my fault and no, that’s not a date, even by your standards brother”

“I wasn’t this bad in high school or art school, how did becoming an adult render me so totally useless?” Gerard pondered, watching each drip of coffee into the pot like it was his fucking redemption.

“When you’re in high school you think with your balls, in the real world you think with your brain” Bob answered helpfully as he pushed open the door with his hip, causing Ray to wave behind him, “You use your brain too much kid” Bob finished, raising an eyebrow at the half destroyed kitchen. “Bird break in again?”

Gerard sighed but shook his head as Brian brought up the rear, holding a slab of diet coke in his arms, they had brought Chinese take-out and soda, shit was going to be fine. “That was one time and they were really big pigeons” Gee replied defensively as Bob shrugged, elbowing Mikey until he set out cups for the others.

 

“I wasn’t judging man, simply asking, last time your place looked like this Hitchcock played like real life in your living room, wanted to make sure that wasn’t likely to occur again, you know how I feel about feathered creatures dude, they’re weird”

“Bryar save us the diatribe on your distaste for feral flying animals, I need to talk to an artist about a band or specifically a certain member of a band that he has been avoiding” Brian intoned cracking open the first can of diet coke with a loud snap.

Cue every eye in the room to turn on Gerard, well every eye but Rays because he had disappeared into Gee’s spare room seconds after they had entered the apartment in search of something, no one had actually paid enough attention to remember what. “I was going to reply to him, until I ran into him at the coffee store…”

“You what?!” Brian and Mikey replied in unison, causing Brian to glare a little more and Mikey to disappear back behind his coffee making, angry Brian wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to be on the receiving end of, no matter how much he loved his brother or gossip.

“I, it wasn’t on purpose, I was actually trying to avoid having to go and get coffee after last night” Gerard replied, utterly aware of how deep a hole he was digging himself, why was coffee not ready? Coffee would make this easier and also like give him a cup to hide behind.

“After last night?” Brian asked raising an eyebrow, “You mean when you came to see his band? The band that your brother said you really liked, the band that you agreed to do art work for, but are now refusing to communicate with on account of your moronic teenage crush that you have acquired over the lead singer of said band?” when Brian explained things they always seemed altogether more simple and ridiculous all at the same time. It was a gift, but not one Gerard actually liked so much.

“I just don’t want to look like a total retard alright?” Gerard sighed, hissing as he took a gulp of scolding coffee, panting for a moment as his tongue burned like mad. “You could have fucking told me that he was the same guy who I’d seen before, he’s your friend, for once this isn’t even entirely my fault!” Gerard snapped, watching as each word caused Brian’s left eyebrow to raise another half an inch. He had really impressive muscular control in his face.

“So your problem is that a cute guy wants you to do some work with him but you’re too worried that you will make a fool of yourself even though you A. already have by losing your child B. have seen him covered in glitter and looking like a total dork himself and C. had a perfectly fine conversation with him earlier today in which you did not insult him or any of his religious beliefs or showed your inner nerd because we all know how much that scares the pretty ones away. “ Mikey explained, jumping in before Brian went ground zero on them all.

“I didn’t pour coffee all over myself either” Gerard added, considering that as a win of sorts.  
“See you’re doing better than that time with the cute guy at the Starbucks you never go to anymore!” Mikey chirped, catching a shake of the head from Bob that explained he was trying too damn hard, well fuck, it wasn’t like Bob was doing anything to help.

“I don’t know how I could explain what’s happened without looking like a total social retard” Gerard impressed upon them, tapping at the edges of his cup as he gazed firmly into the bag filled with steaming hot food in the middle of the table. Why were they not eating yet? Eating would make them all shut up and leave him alone. Eating was the best.

“But Gee you are a total social retard, the sooner prospective man friends know this, the more likely you are to fall for someone that isn’t a total douche canoe” Bob replied, giving Gerard a fake sunshine grin before he took another long drink of his coffee, he was going to need a buckets worth of this shit to get through the evenings melodrama he could feel it in his bones.  
“Ooh good one, where’d you get that from?” Gee chuckled, leaning down to add a few more lines of text to the picture he had been drawing. “Reddit” Bob replied simply, leaning over Mikey to pour himself more coffee.

“On the tentacle porn threads again Bryar?” the younger of the Way brothers teased, happy to see most of the original tension had started to fade.

“Fuck you there are some great mixing threads on there, plus considering I’ve never talked to you about that sort of thing I’d have to assume that you’re projecting and if so Mikeyway I accept you for your strange sexual preferences and will not judge you” Bob replied simply, folding his arms across his broad chest, leaning back a little in what Gerard could honestly say was the most amusing fuck you gesture he’d ever seen.

“You’re an asshole” Mikey laughed, fishing through the takeout bags to locate himself a fortune cookie, he really didn’t care about Chinese food all that much he just wanted to read all of the weird fortunes.

Ray returned with paint in his hair and an old shirt Gerard had made back in his uni day’s with ‘thank you for the venom’ scrawled across it. Gerard let him borrow it when asked and laughed along with the rest of the group as Bob crawled into the blanket fort to wake up Bandit and ended up with a tiny foot to the face, Bandit didn’t do waking up well. Bob being Bob thought this was adorable and carried her around on his shoulders for the next half hour. This made eating noodles very interesting for the 4 year old who dropped several of them onto Bob’s head, causing at least one if not every other member of the group to choke on their food as she did so.

“You do realize that you are the only person on the planet who could get themselves into this kind of situation right?” Mikey laughed watching as his brother chewed on the edge of a spring roll worriedly.

“Yeah but see, I was hoping that, that would mean that you would be the only person on earth who could get me out of this situation” his older brother replied, peering back at him with big round eyes.

“It so doesn’t work that way” Mikey replied, totally immune to any and all of Gerard’s pleading expressions.

“Is there some magical way to make it work that way?” Gee pondered, a slow grin spreading across his face as the others groaned in unison.

“Is this some competition to see who can fit way into the conversation more because this shit is seriously confusing the hell out of me” Brian growled, stabbing his fork a little too violently into his kung-pow chicken.

“Look there is no way that mikeway can find a way out of this wayward situation, it’s not the Way way” Gerard shrugged, trying to hide a smile behind his third can of soda as Mikey giggled, “I see what you did there by the way”

“STOP” Brian cried as Mikey tried to duck a spare set of chopsticks that were sent flying at him.  
“I’ll reply to his message later alright” Gerard sighed, glancing down at his phone before choking on his noodles a little, watering eyes obscuring his view for a moment as he checked his messages and email.

“You gave him my email, like both of my emails” Gerard wheezed, looking at the four emails and two new texts he had received.

“I told you that you were going to take him off my hands Way, I wasn’t kidding” Brian shrugged, smacking Ray’s chopsticks out of the way as he tried to steal some of his food. Silent stealthy big haired twat.

“ And if there’s one thing we can be certain of it’s that Brian will get his Way” Mikey giggled, holding up a couch cushion to protect him from the unopened soda can that flew at him moments later.

“You’re getting too predictable Schechter” Ray chuckled, handing Bandit a fortune cookie as she tried to stick another set of clean chopsticks into Ray’s hair beside her.  
After a smoke break, which Brian bitched about as Ray tidied away their dishes and Bob figured out creative ways to flip Brian off from downstairs the group regathered in the kitchen, catching the evening’s pregig call from Lyn, much to Bandits delight.

“I RETURN!” She called down the phone, utterly unaware that she was on speaker, at least she hadn’t said anything dirty or entirely embarrassing like she often did when calling him.

“To an audience!” Mikey sung out, causing the rest of them to giggle in response.

“You asshole” Lyn growled, causing Bandit to giggle even move.

“HI LYN!!!!” the others called in grade school unison, seriously these guys spent way too much time together.

“Oh is that my favourite group of band boys I hear?” Lyn laughed, ducking out of the way of one of the roadies, nodding and waving to them as they went, backstage was always a cluster fuck around this time.

Bandit dominated the conversation for the first little while, explaining the day’s events, her new change to vegetarianism that got a few too many “oh really”’s from her mother for Gerard to be completely comfortable and quite a few chuckles from the rest of the group as Bandit explained their quick escape which in hindsight and explained by a 4 year old really did seem worse than Gerard had planned for it to be.

It wasn’t until after Bob took Bandit off to be tucked in to bed (he told the best stories on account of his not so secret love of Disney movies) that the real fun began.

“You let some Vegetarian scene boy turn our kid off meat so you could score free coffee? GERARD!” Lyn snapped as soon as Brian (traitor) informed her of the coast being clear.  
“The coffee wasn’t free, in my rush to leave I sort of paid for twice the amount I should have” Gerard explained pointlessly, glancing down at his scuffed shoes, not really remembering putting them on this morning, shoes were weird like that, they had a near permanent placement on your being but tended to go unnoticed or forgotten so very often.

“So you paid someone to turn our kid into a hippie who has poor dietary intake?” Lyn scowled, though it was all pretty good natured, for one the others were listening in and two, well he could have done a lot worse, Bandit was a pretty good eater anyway, so removing meat from her diet for a little while at least was unlikely to cause too many problems.

Gerard continued to fidget, giving Mikey a weary smile as he lay a new cup of coffee down in front of him, his brother was sort of the greatest person in the world, he should probably tell him that more often. “There’s a lot of cause and effect that you aren’t taking into account here” Gee replied, shrugging his shoulders a little as he slurped on his coffee.

“I don’t think I have ever seen someone look quite so cute as they dig themselves into such a deep hole” Brian laughed, patting Gerard on the head as he went in search of the last of the soda, he always hid a couple around the apartment to stop the others from hogging them all.Greedy mother fuckers as they were.

“Fuck you Brian” Gee snapped back, grinning a little as Lyn laughed like an idiot down the phone, the sound went a little scratchy for a moment and he imagined her juggling the device as she bent over and tried to breath, catching the occasional wheeze as she tried to speak and continued to laugh.

“Not today, but thank you” Brian called from behind the couch, making a sound of triumph as he stood up, diet coke can in hand, causing the rest of the group to both laugh and frown at him in unison, he was one weird dude.

“Asshole” Gerard muttered as Mikey wandered over to try and steal the can from him, just for general shits and giggles. Bob appeared a few moments later and decided to join in the fight, picking Mikey up easily to move him out of the way.

“They are usually helpful when it comes to said fucking yes, but as I said before, not today thank you Gee” Brian called back through a laugh that quickly turned into an indignant squawk as Bob turned on him, causing Brian to glare up at him and threaten his job. Neither of which were of any use, Bob was the best in the fuckin business, Brian would never fire him and while sure, Brian had the scariest fucking glare this side of a crack house runner, but Bob was three times his size on a bad day, so there was no actual competition here.

“Lyyyn” Gee whined as he watched Brian hand over the diet coke, turning back to glare at Gerard, which hey, no fair, he didn’t tell Bob to steal his beverage.

“Hey I’m still mad at you for the thing” Lyn shrugged, lighting another cigarette, waiting for that lovely sigh that spread from several members of the group, smoking in front of or well, down the telephone line at a group of people who were rationing their intake was so very rewarding.  
“On the upside we will all get to see how the final chapter of the ever awkward Gerard and Frank saga goes tomorrow when they meet up” Brian called moving past the group with plans to attempt to find something cool and caffeinated in Gerard’s fridge.

Gerard blinked, his mind still half lingering on cigarettes as he turned to a rather lame view of Brian’s ass sticking out of his fridge “Well we haven’t set a date yet” he replied slowly, a slow look of horror building on his face.

“Yes you have” How did he know Brian was going to say that?  
“What?” Gerard spat, almost snorting coffee out of his nose, causing Ray and Mikey to both lose themselves in another fit of laughter and make a right mess of the collection of fortune cookie fortunes they had been trying to organise into poems.

“I sent him a message from your phone while you were downstairs earlier ‘taking out the trash’ and defiantly not having a cigarette” Brian replied, producing a can of fucking Fanta, gross and snapping it open, the thing didn’t let out the tell-tale fizzle of an in date beverage and if the twisted look of Brian’s face was anything to go on that can was ancient.

“Gee” Lyn chided, taking another long slow drag of her cigarette, double standards had never felt sooo good.

“You can’t talk” Gerard snapped, frowning at Brian as he poured the drink down the sink, what was it with him and throwing out stuff from Gerard’s fridge? Gee was pretty sure he just liked to get rid of things. Asshole.

“I believe that is exactly what I am doing” Lyn replied smoothly, chuckling a little at Brian’s “Here, Here” in the background.

“I hate everyone in the world why are you in my apartment?” Gerard groaned, laying his head down on the table, couldn’t they leave him alone with his now functioning coffee machine and new comic already?

“Hey I made you coffee!” Mikey replied sounding suitably taken aback. He did have a point. He had not only made several pots but had delivered the damn stuff to Gerard’s kitchen personally.

“You can stay” Gerard replied, leaving his head on the table as his brain drifted back to the tattoo’s that wrapped their way around Franks fingers, they were so interesting, he would have to find a way to get a better look at the tomorrow…

“We didn’t say anything” Ray piped in, leaning back a little as Bob pressed his fingers into the other man’s shoulders, Bob may have been a burly dude but his back massages were like goddamn heaven. He took pity on Gerard every once in a while when he would notice him favouring one side too much from hours of drawing and fixed his back for him. Gerard had actually considered offering to pay him for his services if it meant he’d do it more often but Brian had made a prostitution joke at the two of them and killed that idea before it had a chance to work itself out. Brian was awesome like that.

“Yes well you can stay too then” Gerard muttered absent mindedly before sitting bolt upright with such speed that Mikey almost dropped his coffee and Ray let out a yelp. “Wait what do you mean tomorrow?” Gee finished, the tone of his voice wavering at a pitch of pure panic.

“I checked your calendar, you’ve got 4-6 free tomorrow, so does Frank, he’s going to come over with their EP and talk to you about what idea’s you might have” Brian explained in a bored tone, stealing Gerard coffee from right under his nose, it was always excellent when he was like this, it’d take him at least half the cup before he noticed it was gone, jackpot.

“What if I had some appointment that I hadn’t logged in there” Gerard asked, sounding a little offended, though really he had no right, everyone knew how absent minded he was, anyone that wanted to see him always sent him a calendar invite otherwise he was more than likely not going to turn up or be there to let you into the house / actually wearing pants when he did.

“You don’t, you’re Gerard Way, aside from meeting with Scott, which I know you aren’t dodging right now because you are ignoring his emails and texts as well as Franks, you don’t have other ‘appointments’ as such” Brian shrugged taking another long happy sip of Gerard’s coffee.

Deciding after another sip to stick Mikey with coffee duty from now until forever, he was defiantly the most skilled of the group in such areas.

“It’s moments like these that I hate how well you know me” Gee sighed, looking down as he reached for his cup and found nothing.

“It is what I live and breathe to do Gerard, know your boring little life inside out so that I can find moments such as these to make fun of you” Brain drawled, placing the mostly empty cup back between his friends hands.

“That’s only a half lie isn’t it” Gerard replied over the rim of his cup, finishing the last of the beverage quickly, unsure of how mad he could really be with Brian, the meeting was inevitable, at least this way he was biting the bullet before it got possibly anymore awkward.

“I can’t even begin to think about how to answer that question” Brian muttered, rolling his eyes as Mikey chuckled, pointing at the coffee machine before making his ‘nooooow’ eyebrow movements. Mikey was on his feet before he’d even really thought about what he was doing. Brian was a goddamn eyebrow ninja, he’d programmed this stuff into his employee’s so long ago that they barely even registered it now.

“As much as I enjoy listening to you idiots ruining one another’s lives down the phone line, I think I’m going to say good night before I have to break tour to be the character witness at one or more of your murder trials. Ray darling do me a solid and keep them from doing anything too stupid” Lyn piped up, noting the lateness of the hour, they’d have to head on stage soon, god she was tired.

“Hey I’m here too” Mikey called, rather tired of being overlooked, he wasn’t causing any drama god damnit. Though Frank was his best friend and he really probably should have put two and two together and sorted this out for his brother a little sooner, but hey, he was busy you know, having a wife and buying coffee for Gerard and making every damn scene kid ever turn up night after night at Brian’s stupid (badass) bar.

“Yes but it may involve messing up your hair sweetie” Lyn reminded him, scuffing out the last of her cigarette under her well-worn boots, she’d probably need to get a new pair soon, fuck she hated getting new shoes on tour, they were such a bitch to play in.

“Oh” Mikey murmured, considering the pros and cons of getting involved depending on how badly it would mess up his hair, it really did take a long ass time to style every day and blood might ruin the blonde streaks he had going on. Mikey was 100% sure that he would not suit pink hair.

“Exactly “ Lyn chuckled, shoving her lighter back into her pocket decidedly “Goodnight my dears, don’t do any murderin while I’m gone” she called, smiling as each of them said their goodbyes and Gerard took her off speaker, murmuring his farewells mixed with promises to call tomorrow. He brought her back down to earth, even like this, it was important to have that on nights like these, when the roar of the crowd already echoed in her ears. For all his worries and woes, he was still her calm centre of the universe and she thanked whatever magical cosmic entities that may be out there for creating him.

Mikey made another round of coffee and the guys swapped stories of the day, filled Gerard in on the usual gossip, teased him about Frank a little (that was mostly Brian) (actually it was only Brian who is a total Jerk) (according to Gerard) (ok according to everyone)(except Brian) and generally shot the shit. Gerard liked them like this, lazy and listless, sneaking back downstairs for a last smoke when Brian went off to the toilet, causing him to try and hit them with the empty Fanta can from the living room window (he missed by a mile). As the evening drew to a close Gerard found himself unable to worry too much about the coming afternoon, whatever would be, would be, right?

As Gee settled himself back at his drawing desk, his eyes lingered on the kitchen table, placing each of his friends back into the spaces they had occupied earlier in the night, filling in the darkness and silence that had taken over the apartment since their departure with the ghosts of their laughter. Bit by bit he rebuilt each of them, just like he had Bandit and Frank earlier, turning each of them into a new character, similar but not exactly the same, Killjoys, Gerard murmured to himself, a tiny smile making its home across his features. Killjoys, make some noise, look alive sunshine. The evening moved into early morning as he worked, sketching out characters and colors, making pages of notes, stray lyrics weaving their way in between dialogue and character descriptions, this wasn’t like umbrella, no this was something so very, very different. His head lay across one of his pages as he continued to make notes, his eyes closing before his hand remembered that sleep meant it had to stop too, falling asleep to the sound of his marker scratching a slow stop across the paper, slumped against his desk as the sun began to make her weary approach towards the horizon.


	4. The one where Brian almost kills everyone, Ray has a minor life crisis and Frank finally discovers that Gerard is in fact, Gerard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bandit paused for a moment as the listened to Frank stumble his way out of the building, “Daddy, why is your shirt inside out?” Gerard blinked, starting down at his shirt for a moment before he stepped back and locked the door, inwardly creating an entirely new way to combine his favorite swear words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long guys. First and for most, the characters in this story are not mine, I do not know or own them, this is all glorious delicious fiction and nothing else. A big thank you to Lizzie for editing my stuff and putting up with my bitching and to Skye for kicking me up the ass to get this all done. I hope you enjoy

Frank was going to be late, well no, if he were to be entirely honest and fuck it, why the hell not, he was actually already late, so really, he was going to be later than he already was. Which was definitely a bit not good. Apparently he thought freaking out at Brian about this would make things better. Brian had to disagree. Thankfully he’d already arrived at his destination by the time Frank had called. Last time Frank had tried to ask him relationship advice while Brian was driving he’d almost driven off the road. That was totally Franks fault though, he’d been fucking brain storming how hard it could be to have sex in an office chair. Brian had not be prepared for that shit.

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Frank moaned looking sorrowfully at the red light a couple of cars ahead of him, did today just hate him or something? Was that it? Did the universe decide to rain on his parade for shits and giggles?

“I don’t like you, doesn’t change a damn thing though now does it?” Brian replied, in no mood for Frank’s hysterics. He never really was and yet after being faced with it day in day out for several years he’d sort of grown to grudgingly find the kid’s melodrama oddly endearing, in a way. Brian was 99% sure he was the world’s biggest friendship masochist.

“That’s different,” Frank replied, fumbling a new cigarette out of his rather squished packet as the light went green, causing him to curse and almost set himself on fire, typical.

  
Brian smiled, imagining what Frank was doing right now, by the level of squeak he’d just emitted he’d burnt his hand well and proper. “Pretty sure it isn’t.”

“You love me,” Frank grumbled around his smoke, indicating at the last minute and pissing off several peak hour drivers to his left, whatever, he wasn’t used to this suburb, they could deal.

  
“Wrong answer try again,” he retorted, dragging his bag off the passenger seat in his car, considering how much longer this conversation looked to last he may as well check he had everything he needed.

“I’m running late,” Frank explained, getting to the actual root of the fucking problem.

“Did you text him?” Brian asked, only half listening by this point far more interested in looking over the paper work he had brought with him.

“Yeah,” Frank replied a little sheepishly.

“Problem solved then.” Brian shrugged, frowning for a moment as he shuffled a few of the papers back into their correct order. “Though I fail to see how bitching at me is going to get you there any faster, you shouldn’t be on the phone when you’re driving anyway.”

“It’s fine you’re on hands free,” which wasn’t entirely a lie, Frank wasn’t using his hands  
.  
“Which means I’m on speaker resting on your junk doesn’t it,” Brian grumbled, glaring at his steering wheel, which wasn’t really fair, it hadn’t done anything to deserve that sort of look, it functioned perfectly well and never annoyed him like Frank did.

“A+ good sir, go to the top of the class.” Frank laughed, turning down a street he was mostly sure was the correct one, he’d turned the google maps directions off when he’d called Brian so he’d been driving sort of blind for the duration of their conversation.

“I am in no way comfortable being this close to your balls,” Brian shivered, attempting to stop the mental image before it could begin to form. As usual he failed. Gross.

“When was the last time you were near anyone’s balls Brian?” Frank wondered out loud, sounding far too interested in the question at hand.

“The fuck you care?” Brian asked, rather bristled and in need of a cigarette himself by this point. Frank was going to give him lung cancer or a stomach ulcer or a brain tumor he was sure of it. His tomb stone would one day read ‘Here lies a man driven to an early grave by his dickhead friends’ and Brian so wasn’t down with that shit.

“I, unlike some people, care and worry for my friends’ happiness in their romantic endeavors and thus have a greater pool of emotion to draw from surrounding such matters,” Frank replied haughtily drawing a sharp snort from the other end of the phone.  
  
“Yes a pool filled with shit.” Brian was going to get off the phone now, fuck this, he could feel an eye twitch coming on and he had several hours of number running with his accountant ahead of him, he didn’t need the glory of business to be ruined by emotionally stunted musicians. They did that enough already.

“Oh gross man, that’s not cool,” Frank shuddered, looking at his cigarette for a moment as if it would somehow erase the disgusting images wandering through his mind. Sadly it had nothing to offer.

“Yes good, good bye,” Brain finished, hanging up before Frank attempted to drag him into another idiotic circular dialogue that got both of them nowhere.  
  
“No but Brian how do I- assssshole,” Frank hissed, squinting up at a street sign he just passed, he really should have paid attention to that navigation planner thing more.  
__  
Franks tardiness in any other situation would probably cause problems, but Gerard wasn’t exactly the queen of time management himself and several hours that morning of trying to figure out what was appropriate to wear in your own apartment for a not business, business meeting had ended up with him wearing a pair of black jeans and a singular sock.

“I think you look beautiful as you are,” Lyn called through the speaker phone as Bandit laughed at her bare chested father throwing couch cushions out of the way as he searched for his missing sock.

“You can’t even see me, so how would you know?” Gerard snapped, his patience utterly shattered by this demon sock and his entire wardrobe filled with useless clothing. It should not be this difficult to dress himself.

“I can imagine it,” Lyn shrugged, leaning against the brick wall of their dressing room, watching as Kitty applied her third coat of eyeliner. It was always nice to take a moment to stop and watch the others prepare, to remember where she was and what she was doing.

“Well that’s just excellent for you, could you perhaps imagine me a shirt then? Maybe some shoes, see I can’t tell, is it weird to wear shoes in your own apartment? I’ve never figured that one out.” Gerard pondered, starting down at the sock on his foot as if it held all the answers to life’s questions.

Bandit frowned, looking from the phone to Gerard and back again, “Mum I think he’s broken” she whispered, causing Lyn to laugh again, still so fucking glad she’d left the two of them together. They were doing each other wonders, though Gerard really needed to get a grasp on the whole clothing himself thing if he was going to start taking her to school in a few weeks.

“Wear whatever you want, you’ve seen him covered in glitter; the playing field is pretty even by this point.” Lyn explained, attempting to help as much as she could. Bandit got down from her chair carrying the phone with her as she followed Gerard back into his room to watch him glare at his clothing that was now strewn all over his bedroom.

“Throwing your clothing everywhere probably didn’t help,” Lyn added as Gerard sighed, glaring down at the phone in his daughters hand as she lent against his leg a little sleepily, it was about time for her afternoon nap.

“You’re doing the psychic best friend thing again and it’s not really fair because I know all you’ll be doing is sitting in your dressing room contemplating whether you can wait another couple of weeks before you buy new boots, which you shouldn’t because last time you did that they fell apart on stage and you had to go bare foot for the rest of the set”Gerard replied, holding up a button down black shirt for a moment before shaking his head, where the hell did he get so much black from?

“Oh so you’re allowed to psychic best friend me, but I can’t do the same? Let me have a little fun will you, plus I remember the state of your room when we were in art school together, that’s not psychic powers, that’s sheer horror” She chuckled, tapping the toes of her boots together, he was right, they were already starting to come away at the toe a little, they wouldn’t last more than two shows if she was lucky.

“Proving a point, plus it’s for your own safety, plus shut up, I’m clean now, we are clean now aren’t we B?” Gerard asked, bending down a little to pick her up, Bandit nodded for a moment before frowning at the phone, “We do the dishes and clean the house and Brian doesn’t yell at Gee much anymore,” she added, causing Gerard to wince a little, but he couldn’t blame her, kids had that bad habit of being unknowingly honest.

“Well at least I know you have clean plates to eat off,” Lyn smiled, as she heard Gerard sigh down the phone line again.

“He’s not going to care and you have more than enough decent clothing, he’s a penniless band boy Gerard, you could dress up like a priest and he’d probably think it was cool, that’s not to imply you should.” Lyn finished quickly, knowing her best friend far too well.

The knock that echoed through the kitchen cut off the rather sass filled response Gerard had ready and waiting and instead sent him into a state of mostly sheer panic.

“Daddy is that Frank?” Bandit squeaked, wiggling excitedly as she tried to get free, which really wasn’t helping to calm Gerard’s nerves one bit.

"No, well yes, but dear god, don't open the door, give me a second and take your mother away she’s not invited.” Gerard explained, putting Bandit down as he grabbed at an old horror t-shirt resting on his bed.

“Ruuude!” Lyn called, laughing to herself as she explained why Bandit needed to take the phone back to her room so that they could talk for a while and let Frank and Gerard do business. Bandit didn’t agree, considering how badly their last few meetings had been she really wanted to be there to make sure things went smoothly. Lyn bless her soul convinced their daughter otherwise and as Gerard ran a hand through his hair (which just made it stand on end and look crazy, would he ever learn?) and dragged the shirt over his head (inside out) (he hadn’t noticed) he took a moment to breath before he opened the front door.

Frank already had an apology planned out, which he had sort of been practicing for a few minutes outside the front door before he’d knocked but then Gerard had taken a little while so he’d started it over in his head again and then Gerard had opened the door part of the way through him practicing and words sort of started coming out of his mouth “I mean I know some people aren’t into sugar these days but I figured that bringing oreo’s would be a safe bet-what are you doing here?” he finished, bringing the blue box of cookies back to his chest as Gerard reached for them.

“I live here.” Gerard replied simply, raising an eyebrow at Frank as he continued to look small and really weirded out.

“You’re Gerard” Frank blinked, frowning at Gerard’s inside out t-shirt, was that an artist thing? Or maybe a fashion thing? He found it really hard to keep track of that shit these days, like when had tights become pants? “The artist?” He continued a little dumbfounded.  
  
“Do you really think there are two people living here called Gerard?” Gerard asked raising an eyebrow as he let his hand fall back to his side, well so much for free oreo’s.  
“Stranger things have happened.” Frank replied a little uncertainly, trying to get his bearings in the situation.

“Really?” Gerard laughed, his eyebrow arching even higher, which Frank had to admit was pretty impressive, how did one dude manage so much sass in such a simple muscle movement?

“No I’m just attempting to dig my way out of this situation.” Frank shrugged, giving Gerard his best dorky grin. “How am I doing?”

“Better before you asked that question.” Gerard finished, leaning his hip against his door jam, watching Frank with an amused look in his eyes.

The smile on Franks lips slid from dorky to something far less innocent as he gave Gerard a once over himself, the tussled home body look suited him “Cool can I come in, I have cookies,” he explained, waving the packet around obviously.

“How could I turn you away?” Gerard chuckled, stepping aside to let Frank pass.

"I can't believe it's you, I mean it's good, don't get me wrong, I just, small world Jersey right?” Frank laughed, looking around Gerard’s kitchen for a moment, smiling at the mismatched scifi mugs and paint filled glasses. It was pretty much exactly as he’d expected.

“Plus if I'd know I could have brought the vegetarian cookbook I was keeping at the coffee shop for you" Frank shrugged, sitting down in the closest kitchen chair, he’d always had a bit of a bad habit of making himself at home in strangers’ houses. Though in his eyes Gerard wasn’t exactly a stranger so it wasn’t so bad right?

"Yeah it's weird how small such a densely populated place can b- wait you were keeping a cookbook for me?" Gerard paused half way between the fridge and the coffee machine, getting things for coffee ready on autopilot before he’d actually managed to ask Frank if he wanted some in the first place.

Frank laughed nervously, leaning back on the chair a little, letting his head fall back as the week’s exhaustion washed over him, gods he just wanted to sleep.

"Well yeah, I mean I felt really bad about what happened and I figured if you came back in again sometime I could give it to you as a peace offering of sorts" Frank shrugged trying to play the whole thing off as if it was nothing. He hadn't spent an hour and half sifting through his cupboards to find the exact right cook book or anything. No, not at all, he hadn't taken it to the store the next day and hung around hoping to run into Gerard, totally causing himself to be late for band practice.

"That's, really nice" Gerard blinked, staring at his shoes for a moment, noticing a few moments later he still wasn't wearing shoes, was that weird? Was not wearing shoes when guests were in his house strange? Lyn had never actually filled him in on that one, which was annoying because when it came to social etiquette she was a hell of a lot better at this sort of thing. He didn't really get guests that weren't his close friends at his house ery often so he's sort of forgotten the etiquette required on that front.Meanwhile the coffee machine beeped its readiness to fulfill their every coffee desire at him.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts Gerard looked up, watching as Frank sighed quietly, spread out like he fucking owned the place, looking over tired and underfed in his torn black jeans and cardigan. Frank huffed out a long slow breath before opening his eyes once again, the flutter of his lashes against the pale purple stain beneath his eyes shifted something strange at the base of Gerard’s spine, causing his fingers to twitch a little around the cup he was holding.

"Sorry man, I'm totally slammed from this week, sort of zoned out for a moment, but yeah, no it's nothing, I'll bring it round next time, it's got little hints and slight tweaks to the recipes which should hel- FUCK"

Frank moved, well sort of half fell, half skidded, half ran and jumped and okay that was more than a whole but fuck maths, that sort of movement didn't exist within scientific parameters as far as Gerard was aware anyway, so numerical values didn't really properly apply.

"What the fuck is that-in the-that's, that'sonebigfuckinspider" Frank squeaked, still scuttling backwards as the arachnid that had moments before been perched above his head slowly spun a little more of her web.

"Are you, well, yes, it's, I'm sorry, it's not poisonous if that's what you're worried about?" Gerard replied quickly, moving to put the cup down before thinking better of it, tipping the sugar he had put into it onto a stray plate.

"Why would you keep a spider in your house? They're spindly and nasty and weird,even if they don't kill you they could crawl on you or lay eggs in your hair or ears or brain" Frank replied as he continued to backwards scramble out of the room. He felt like a bit of an idiot but was also way too freaked out by the fact that there was a spider above his head seconds before to care about his lame not first, first impression. Who the fuck did that? Who kept spiders as pets?

"Well she has an egg sack up there so I don't think she'll be laying eggs in anyone’s hair or brains anytime soon, I mean it's a spider not a zombie" Gerard replied calmly, noting the paler shade Frank had suddenly turned.

"I'm not helping am I?" He asked, biting his lip as he glanced between the spider and Frank, he'd need to get rid of it he figured, though he wasn't sure if he tried to get it down if Frank would freak out even more and jump out the window or something.

"Not really no. How long has that egg sack been up there? Like is there a chance that it could pop open while I am here and send thousands of those wee fuckers scrambling all over the place because we really need band posters but we don't need them that much." Frank replied, trying to keep his eyes on the door, Gerard and the spider all at once. Considering he only had two eyes and had yet to evolve to a state that allowed him to move each eye individually this caused Frank to go mostly cross eyed and fall over Gerard’s drawing table, sending sketches everywhere.

"Just, you, stay there" Gerard yelped as Bandit stuck her head out of her room in response to the resounding crash that was now Frank covered in art supplies and flying sketches.

"Daddy what did you do to pretty Frank?" Bandit asked, frowning a little as she pointed to Frank, as if Gerard had somehow not noticed him.

"Nothing sweet heart, Frank, doesn't like spiders, so he got a little scared of Charlotte up here and fell over, could you uh, could you talk to him while I take her outside?" Gerard asked, resting a hand on the back of Franks now discarded chair, hoping like hell that the spider's eggs didn't burst open like a fucked up mini version of Alien or something.

Frank was still not dealing with the situation, he was aware that his rather extreme arachnophobia was sort of (completely) silly (ridiculous) for someone his age (or any age really) (except maybe a 4 year old, like the one standing in front of him now holding a unicorn plush toy, trying to explain to him that Charlotte wasn't going to hurt him, she just wanted somewhere warm and safe for her babies). The thing with phobias however is that no matter the age or circumstances one tended to deal rather badly with all areas of life when they were forced to face their fears. Frank tried to remind himself of this as Bandit continued to talk to him while Gerard tried to get a cup over the evil arachnid and her devil spawn. It didn't work all that well, at first anyway.

"And this one is me, see? Daddy did it just before we saw you at the coffee shop" Bandit explained holding up a slightly crumpled page filled with sketches in front of him.

The sketches were rough but really interestingly stylized and he could see Bandit in them, dressed in a leather jacket with crazy hair and a robot doll, 'Motor Baby' was scrawled beside it. Picking up another few pages around him Frank and Bandit lost themselves in the half planned world of the 'Fabulous Killjoys'.

"This one looks like me" Frank frowned, running his thumb across a sketch of knuckles with 'Halloween' inked upon them in the corner.

"That's because it is" Gerard replied, causing Frank to jump a little and check his hand for cups or spiders. Noting the look of fear returning to Frank's face Gerard held his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

"I took the spider and her nest of little ones downstairs to live near the bins, so as long as you don't want to go through my rubbish on the way out you should be safe" Gee chuckled, his cheeks a little pink from the jog back up the stairs.

"I, uh, yeah, that was pretty uncool of me, spiders just sort of freak me the-" Frank paused, noting Bandit sitting beside him "hell out?" he finished, raising an eyebrow at the curse as Gerard smiled a little more.

"You don't say? They also cause you to create sketch storms it seems" he replied raising an eyebrow as Frank blinked and looked at the paper around them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to mess things up, we should have cleaned while you were out I just sort of got caught up looking at these, I mean, you, did you draw me as a super hero?" Frank asked, trying his best not to sound too excited.

Gerard's gaze slammed straight back down to his shoes, well feet, which was not the best, because now Frank was looking at his feet, well he was pretty sure he was, because he was also looking at his feet, one of which had a leaf stuck to it from going downstairs. Why did he have to be such a fucking loser?

"Is that, I mean its weird right?" Gerard asked hesitantly, entirely sure that Frank was going to accuse him of being some kind of weirdo stalker. Which he wasn't, not entirely, he drew people he didn't know all the time. Not that he didn't know Frank, just not necessarily well enough to put him into a half planned comic book story line.

"If by weird you mean the coolest thing anyone’s ever done, then yeah.Can I have a copy of this? I mean I know you do comics, so if this is for something new or whatever I understand if you don't want anyone to see it, I just, I'm a comic book character. That's so awesome" Frank laughed, causing Bandit to join in.

"Daddy is one too" she explained frowning for a moment as she got up in search of Gerard’s character.

"I like that you gave me a Frankenstein mask, that's cool" he grinned, eyes still caught on the page in front of him.

"It got paint on it, but it still looks nice" Bandit explained, handing the sketch to her father, reaching across Frank to do so. Frank noticed the smear and paused, catching the corner between his fingers.

"I think it looks better like that, I mean not that the other side with black hair doesn't look cool, but the other people I saw all had sort of normal hair, I think the red really works" Frank paused, nodding a few moments later, "But, I'm not an artist so I mean I don't really know about this sort of thing and that was totally my fault shit, sorry" Frank winced, then winced again at cussing near Bandit again. Today was not going as well as he had hoped, then again when did his life ever these days?

"No it's okay" Gerard nodded, taking the sketch from the both of them, dragging a small brush out of a mess of pencils near Frank's knee, filling the rest of the hair in with the left over paint. "It was missing something before, that's why I went on to work on Cobra Kid," Gerard murmured, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he started at the picture for a while longer.

In the long run Gerard does end up making coffee for them both (Bandit has milk) and eating Frank's Oreo's on the living room floor, discussing his ideas for the rest of the comic, adding bits and pieces to Frank's character. Frank sort of likes the idea of naming him 'Fun Ghoul' but he doesn't want to over step the mark with the whole thing yet, being made into a comic book character was cool enough as it was, getting to name them may be going too far. Bandit wanders out at some point to get her own art supplies and sets up camp with the boys, drawing pictures of herself and Gee battling spiders as princess Frank hides behind a bunch of pencils. Gerard is a little worried when she finishes it that Frank might be a little offended, but he laughs along with the both of them and gratefully accepts it from her, promising to put it on his fridge and send them a picture of it.

Two hours later and it’s a little after 4 when Frank notices the messages flashing on his phone. He's already 25 minutes late, excellent, just bloody perfect.

"So we haven't actually talked about posters at all, but I could email you?" Frank offered, pulling on his jacket as he tried to locate his keys and wallet while stumbling towards the door. Gerard nodded, attempting to not look too disappointed and Frank has to remind himself of just how angry Dewees is going to be at him if he's even another minute late for today to stop himself from pretending that he lost his keys somewhere.

"That's fine, I can do a couple of sketches and send them to you then bring a couple of colored mock ups to show you later in the week?" Gerard offered, holding Bandit's picture out to Frank while Bandit pouted beside him.  
"We're having spaghetti for dinner, daddies pretty good at that, you should stay, we have really nice cheese, Brian got it for us" Bandit grinned, swaying a little on the spot with excitement.  
  
"I'm really sorry Bee but I have to go, I promised my friends I would go and see them tonight, but another time, yeah?" Frank finished looking up at Gerard and then very quickly down at Bandit. Did he just ask himself out on a date, well not himself, but accept a date request somewhat from a kid-to-with her dad, this was way too confusing.  
  
"Yeah sure alright I have to, thanks again ” Frank mumbled flailed his spare hand around for a moment before making his way out of Gerard’s apartment taking the stairs two at a time as he fumbled his phone.

"I'll be there in five minutes man, fuck I'm sorry, I was sorting out posters, time got away from me" Frank sighed, cursing a little as he made his way out of the building into the harsh cool wind. What in the hell had happened back there?

Bandit paused for a moment as the listened to Frank stumble his way out of the building, “Daddy, why is your shirt inside out?”

Gerard blinked, starting down at his shirt for a moment before he stepped back and locked the door, inwardly creating an entirely new way to combine his favorite swear words.

__  
Frank’s late for practice, though it’s not surprising, Frank’s pretty sure he’s been late to everything for the past 3 years. He’s smiling like a bit of an idiot when he gets through the studio doors and James gives him a look, his usual mix of excitement about their latest project and pissy due to Frank being half an hour late /again/, with a little ‘what are you so fucking jovial about’ thrown in for good measure. Frank rolls his eyes and picks up a guitar, turning it’s levels just loud enough to drown out anything his friend may try and say. If he plays music for long enough James usually gets distracted and joins in, rather quickly forgetting whatever he’s angry or interested in when it came to Franks outside nonmusical life. Apparently today was no different; at least music was still making sense.  
__  
Frank always found it sort weird riding in the back of peoples cars, made him feel like he was a kid again, which while not entirely bad also wasn’t exactly fun when grandfather Bob was driving.

"So Bandit asked you over for Dinner?" Ray grinned, leaning over his seat to watch Frank fuck around with the mountains of crap Ray had accumulated in the back of his car. Well the car was technically his, he never actually drove it though, Bob was sort of a road hog like that.  
  
Frank shrugged "Yeah, well Gerard didn't say no" he trailed off, chewing on his lip ring a little, fingers itching for a smoke.

"Did he say anything?" Ray frowned, a little concerned by how much stuff seemed to be in the back of his car, like why was there an entire bag of apples on the floor next to Franks feet and when had it gotten there?

"Well no" Frank murmured as he continued to pointedly not look at Ray or really want to have this conversation, he was happy with his fantasy world filled with himself and Gerard laughing together over vegan spaghetti snuggling on the couch watching slasher movies, he didn’t need anyone blowing holes in that thank you very much.

"Very Gerard" Ray sighed, shaking his head a little, causing Bob to grumble as he got a face full of Fro.

"Yeah I thought so" Frank smiled, half lost in a new daydream of some kind of kick ass night time picnic laying on a blanket pointing out the constellations to Bandit, she’d totally love that. Plus Frank was pretty sure that a day time picnic would turn Gerard’s all too pale skin to dust with its evil rays of hot death, so night time picnics aside from being badass and romantic would also be more practical, health wise.

"How would you know? You’ve had him draw you like one of his French girls and suddenly you're braiding each other’s hair while reading one another’s diaries?" Bob rolled his eyes, glaring as some asshole in an SUV pulled into his lane without so much as a hand signal. “No no that’s totally fine, you couldn’t have almost caused a high speed collision with your toddlers in the car or anything, asshole.”

"Keep an eye on the road and stop sassing me Bryar, Ray and I are having lady chats" Frank bitched, kicking the back of Bobs chair lightly for shits and giggles, his grin growing a little as Bob let out another line of curses.

"He drew you? That's pretty awesome" Ray grinned, waving his hand at Bob, in an ‘ignore him’ kind of manner, Bob in a bad mood was pretty fucking impossible.

Bob rolled his eyes, sniffing a little indignantly as he took the next corner, doing his best to zone the two idiots in the car out of his thoughts. Fucking drama queens.

“His shirt was inside out the entire time” Frank explained, wincing a little in sympathy, he had meant to tell him but the spiders sort of distracted him and then it had been too long to be entirely polite. He rather hoped that Gerard just hadn’t noticed at all.

“Shit did you tell him?” Ray barked out a laugh, in no way surprised at Gerard’s poor wardrobe decisions, he’d known him for far too long for that.

“I couldn’t find an appropriate time, I’m not sure what’s more impressive, that he didn’t notice for like two hours or that he managed to look more adorable than weird in it” Frank smiled, fishing a smoke out of his packet, winding down the window to light up, fuck Bob and his no smoking in the car rule.

"So what are you going to do?" Ray asked, fumbling around with his phone as Bob grumbled something about streets magically moving themselves just to piss him off. Frank was pretty sure Bob was totally lost by this point, though getting him to admit that would be near on totally impossible.

"I don't know really, I mean the ball is in his court now" Frank shrugged, snapping his lighter to life before letting out a long sigh as he exhaled a lung full of smoke, that first inhale was always so fucking sweet.

"Yeah but Gerard’s never been very good at playing sports man" Ray laughed, remembering the last time Gee had attempted to play kick ball with them and fallen face first into the dirt, it was adorable in a tragic sort of way.

"I sort of guessed that." Frank smiled, trying to imagine Gerard in his inside out shirt and mismatched socks trying to play tennis, god that would be beautiful.

"Then again neither are you," Ray intoned, gaining a chuckle from Bob before he pointedly ignored the next set of directions Ray gave him. Bloody old married couple.

"Hey come on!" Frank cried, flailing his hands around a little as if to prove some kind of manly sports skill or something, fuck he didn’t know, since when did he suck at sports? Okay he never played them and he couldn’t really run because he smoked too much and his lungs were always one cough off pneumonia but still. Not cool.

"I mean that with a lot of love man, but it's just, if we're going on history, you're not exactly great at this yourself," Ray called over his shoulder a slight strain to his tone as he pointed at the next corner, “It’s a one way street you /have/ to go down there.”

"Come on I'm cool, I'm in a band, I have a job and a house and shit, I'm totally good at this." Frank reasoned as his eyebrows knitted themselves together into one hell of a bitch face. Ok so he didn’t have the best record with relationships but hell, who did these days? Sure Mikey was all married and shit but it wasn’t like most of his friends were any better off.

"When was the last time you so much as went out on a date?" Bob asked rather uselessly, considering the way Frank used him as a personal psychiatrist/diary/day planner/finder of everything he loses/ unless it was an event that had happened within the last 48 hours Bob really didn’t need to ask about it. He already knew, sometimes it was instinctive, like when Frank would call him asking where his keys were even when Bob hadn’t been to his house all week. He almost always found them, which was some kind of psychic link Bob wasn’t entirely ready to accept as a proper part of reality. That sort of closeness to Frank was so not okay in his books.

"Who the fuck even does that anymore? Dating is so high school," Frank groaned, rolling the window down a little more to hang his head out and blow a fresh stream of smoke out into the cool evening’s air. Winter was pretty alright when it wasn’t minus every degree possible Frank thought, smiling up at the moon a little.

"I took Ray to the movies last week" Bob supplied, getting a rare warm fuzzy look on his face as he recounted the evening’s events.

Ray shook his head, sighing as Bob turned down the wrong street again "That wasn't really a date, you won premier tickets to go and see Thor 2 and I was ‘quote un quote’ the least annoying person to take."

"Yeah but Ibought you dinner afterwards," Bob added, still looking a little fuzzy and cheerful, then again maybe he was just remembering Chris Hemsworth’s abs, that guy half naked would make anyone go gooey.

"True." Ray nodded, eyebrows furrowing as he attempted to figure out exactly how much of a date it had become. Dinner and a movie were pretty standard as far as dates went and they did go home and have coffee and talk afterwards. But they always did that, so…

"Anyway, back to more important issues at hand, like my love life and not your weird asexual life partnership, what can I do?" Frank hummed, tapping a little stray ash out the window, trying to imagine how Gerard had managed to get that shirt on without noticing the tag and fuzzy seams and maybe getting it caught on his head and oh, Gerard not wearing a shirt, yeah, yeah okay, that was nice.

"Well you have to see him to get the posters right? Why don't you try and organize it for a time when you would have to be around there for dinner? Then you aren't forcing it to be a date." Ray suggested, still making silent hang gestures at Bob that seemed to mean sorry or your hair looks nice or maybe wrong way turn back, it was always hard to tell with those two, they had so many weird silent conversations. Living with someone could do that to you.  
  
"Except you totally are" Bob deadpanned, blatantly ignoring Ray.  
  
"Well yes, but still, it is easier than coming straight out and asking about it" Frank replied waving an arm around of his own, because fuck it, why should he be left out of this gesturing game of joy. Plus it seemed to piss Bob off a little bit more and that was always good value.  
  
"Yes because honesty is so over rated." Bob finished, glaring a little as they got caught at a red light.

"So how is your love life guys?" Frank grinned, leaning forwards to lay his head on Bob’s shoulder.

"Shut up." he replied, as Ray sat looking a little dumbstruck but mostly exasperated beside him.  
  
"Pot, kettle, black," Frank sing-songed, poking Ray’s hair and getting his hand sort of caught for a moment, never a good idea, that stuff was like quicksand.

"Short, annoying, twat," Bob sung back, pushing Frank off his shoulder as the light turned green and he hit the gas a too hard.

"Touche." Frank grinned falling back against his seat lazily, picking through the random crap piled up on the back seat again.

"Where the hell are we even going anyway?" He asked, chewing on his lip ring as he fished out an old shirt, it was a bit beaten up and had ‘Thank you for the Venom’ scrawled across it. “Yo I’m borrowing this.”

"To a bar," Ray called over his shoulder, nodding non committedly to whatever Frank was attempting to steal, it wasn’t like either of them would be able to stop him anyway.  
"But Brian’s is the other way" Frank frowned, continuing to ponder over the shirt, the hand writing looked vaguely familiar.

"We're not going to Brian’s" Bob replied simply, rolling his eyes as Frank blinked at him stupidly.  
  
"But then Brian won't be there" Frank whined tucking the shirt into his tatty bag.  
  
"You know he can actually leave the bar right" Bob explained slowly as if he were talking to a child.

"Have any of you ever seen him do that?" Frank retorted waving his cigarette around for effect or maybe just to make the car all smoky to piss Bob off. It was pretty hard to tell between his general theatrics and his piss taking these days.

"There are pictures of him outside" Bob sighed, a little worried that he would get into an accident with the number of times Frank had caused him to eye roll since he’d gotten into the car. The guy was a living breathing OH and S hazard.

Frank yelped almost sticking his cigarette up his nose as Bob took a sharper than needed corner, "Photoshop is really good these days," Frank finished, grinning around his cigarette.

"You're an idiot" Bob sighed, really fucking looking forward to that first beer that was still way too far away.

"And yet you keep me around" Frank sighed, smirking a little as Ray awkwardly checked his phone’s gps, he was a little worried that Bob may end up tossing Frank out of the car soon. Best to navigate them literally and figuratively out of that situation.

"You make us look better" Bob shrugged, shaking his head as Ray attempted to give him directions /again/, nodding his head towards the flashing sign up ahead.

"You're sort of sexy when you've got your snark on Bob" Frank drawled as they pulled into the parking lot, managing to duck out of the car just in time to miss Bob’s well aimed back hand as the car came to a stop.

“Took your fucking time” Brian snapped, glaring at Frank as he stumbled towards him, grinning like a naughty child, Bob’s scowl appearing behind him.

“No fighting in the parking lot, let’s get inside it’s fucking freezing out here,” Brian replied rolling his eyes so hard they almost fell out of his head. “Toro I have no idea how you put up with these two.”  
“I have a feeling beer will help.” Ray replied, throwing Brian a good natured smile as he held the door open for the others.  
__  
“You know watching Dangerous Days doesn’t count as actually working right?” Mikey replied as he answered his phone, leaning a skinny hip against his kitchen counter, pointedly not looking at the mess all around him. It was a Wednesday; Wednesdays were not cleaning days it was like a law or something.

“Most people answer the phone with hello or how are you” Gerard murmured, chewing on the end of the marker he held in his hand, still not entirely sure what he was in the mood to draw.

“I am not most people” Mikey smiled, pondering over his coffee maker, he’d decided to make coffee before entering the kitchen it was pretty much sheer laziness that was stopping him at this point.

“And this is why I love you” Gerard chuckled, he could almost feel Mikey’s unwillingness to be constructive down the phone. It was after all why he’d called him to bitch him out for not doing work himself.

“Why aren’t you working, don’t you have those last pages to do for Umbrella?” Mikey murmured, moving some dishes around on the bench without actually cleaning anything, as long as it looked like you’d done something it totally counted.

“They’re at final draft stage so I can wait a few days, I need to I think, my brains not in the best place for them at the moment” Gerard replied as honestly as he dared, there wasn’t really any point keeping this sort of thing from Mikey anymore. Between the silent layers of distrust that his brother held around him these days and his general ability to read him Gerard didn’t really have the energy for all the damn smoke and mirrors.

Mikey nodded, decidedly not pressing the matter, he didn’t like asking Gerard about this kind of thing when he couldn’t meet him eye to eye, Gee still found it too easy to lie and Mikey couldn’t remember when it had happened, but he wasn’t as good at picking fact from fiction with Gerard anymore. “What’s B doing?” he asked instead, getting a coffee cup down from the cupboard, clattering around as he located a clean spoon.

“I’m not actually sure, she’s been quiet for a while now.” Gerard frowned, leaning forwards on the couch a little to try and see what Bandit was doing in the kitchen.

“Bandit what are you doing?” he asked, smiling a little as he noticed the flour streaked through her hair.

“Science!” she replied simply, frowning a little before she put her hands into the mixing bowl in front of her, flour billowing into the air around her.

Gerard shrugged, leaning back onto the couch “Science apparently,” he explained, chewing on the edge of his coffee cup.

“Your kid is going to be one of those weird child prodigies that like creates a new element when they’re 8 years old and goes on to be the first person on mars or something I swear to god.” Mikey sighed good naturedly, frowning down at the stack of bills on their counter, was he meant to deal with these? Why was there no note? Why wasn’t there like 15 mini Brian’s running around to deal with real life business problems?

“Yup and her mum will write songs about it and I’ll draw comics of her, it’ll be brilliant.” Gee smiled wrinkling his nose as they began to talk about the forced voice overs they put in the original theatrical release of blade runner, he’d always hated how they had done that. Corporations killing art like that just wasn’t fucking on.

“So back to my original point, why are you not working?” Mikey asked placing a bag of coffee beans over the bills so that they were magically out of sight, he if couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see him right? That’s the way it worked when they were kids, so fuck it, what even was adult life anyway?

“Because I have been working all week and need a rest?” Gee yawned before sneezing a little, the flour had started wafting into the living room and now she seemed to be putting water into the bowl by the sounds of it. “B don’t eat anything weird okay?”

“Brian came over and threw all the bad stuff out the other day remember daddy? There is nothing weird left for me to eat!” Bandit called, giggling a little as she mixed the contents of her bowl together more.

“She’s smarter than I am and I’m 30,” Gerard sighed, as Mikey clicked his tongue at him.

“No you’re 31 actually,” he corrected, realizing a few moments too late that he had wanted to use the coffee beans, but then responsibility would be all up in his grills again, so fuck that. Settling for a can of coke Mikey wandered into the living room, frowning at the TV, Alicia had left one of her games on pause again. She really needed to stop doing that.

“Use the remote and watch something on your other AV setting,” Gerard replied, ignoring Mikey’s quip about his age, he was totally 30 still … wasn’t he.

“How could you-?” Mikey grumbled, searching around the couch for the remote. He found a couple of empty Pringles tubes and his missing unicorn badge so hell yeah, score, sadly the remote continued to be missing in action.

“You did the angry breathing thing through your nose that is generally reserved for electrical gadget fuckery and laugh tracks on sitcoms, I can’t hear any bad 90’s jingles so I assumed it was the first of the problems.” Gee hummed, sketching out a few industrial landscapes as he continued to watch his documentary, his mind filling with a slow building history of the city the characters he’d been working on lived within.

“We’ve spent too much time together” Mikey sighed, settling down onto the couch, glaring moodily at the TV screen for a while. “So you and Frank have been hanging out a lot lately…”

“Yeah.” Gee mumbled, grumbling a little as he tried to redraw a certain building for the fourth time, he hated when things just wouldn’t mesh with the rest of the image. “I mean it’s mostly been by mistake and almost always ended or at least started with a train wreck of a situation.” Gerard explained, turning to a clean page, staring at it blankly.

“Well that’s Frank for you,” Mikey shrugged “I mean he’s a good friend, but he’s trouble you know?”

“You sound like mom.” Gee chuckled, his eyes wandering back to the screen again. “I’m drawing band posters for him, not taking him to prom dude.”

“Yeah well, I know what you’re like, you can’t help yourself with bumbling weirdoes.” Mikey rolled his shoulders, moving to check his phone before realizing he was already on it, fuck, where the hell was his computer?

“Are you actually trying to give me boy advice? Is this where we’re at now, because I thought we were talking about how cool my kid was and your retarded inability to use household appliances.” Gerard replied, a warning tone to his voice, he really wasn’t in the mood for a lecture from his little brother right now, or really ever thank you.

“I just don’t want you getting hurt, Frank’s not the best at showing his intentions you know? He’s a total flirt and I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.” Mikey explained, a strangely quiet carefulness crawling its way into his tone.

“So you’re worried that your friend is going to flirt with me and I will reciprocate? I’m sorry Mikes, I mean I know I’ve been out of the dating game for a while now, but I am pretty sure that’s how it works generally.” Gerard sighed, he knew this tone and conversation far too well.

“He’s with someone Gee,” Mikey explained, tapping a rather impatient thumb against the side of his mug. Alright so he was telling a lie, of sorts, but when you really got down to it he wasn’t. He knew Frank and he knew Frank’s relationships. They started out well, all spark showers and smiles and then the rest of the world started to creep in, Lauren came back (and she always did whether it took 2 months or a year, she always came home) and then everything would fall by the wayside. He knew Frank and he knew his history, Gerard wasn’t ready for that kind of shit storm, Mikey wasn’t sure he ever would be.

“Oh.” Gerard mumbled, blinking up at the wall for a moment, well that was unexpected.  
“Yeah.” Mikey huffed out, feeling like a champion asshole.

“Well we’re just friends anyway, so what does it matter?” Gerard attempted, sounding so fucking fake that it set Mikey’s teeth on edge.

“Gee I’m-” Mikey started before his brother cut him off.

“No it’s fine, there wasn’t anything, between the two of us, it was just a couple of weird run in’s nothing more,” Gerard continued, getting into the swing of it a little more, his tone evening out. “I need to make sure Bandit doesn’t blow up the kitchen.” he finished, pushing his sketchbook to the side, pointedly ignoring the half sketched knuckles that lay on the page before him.

“Okay, say hi for me yeah?” Mikey asked, looking at the dishes guiltily wondering if a kitchen clean up would seem too suspicious to Alicia when she got back. He needed to do something to make himself feel better.

“Kay,” Gerard replied, already out of his chair, giving Bandit a quiet smile as she held up a bowl of strange goo, babbling about it having magical qualities or something along those lines, she was talking so fast Gee was finding it a little hard to follow.

__  
"So you never gave him your EP" Brian sighed, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose, he really had to wonder how Frank managed day to day life sometimes.

"Shit I totally forgot about that" Frank scowled, scratching out the current price on the cd in his hand with a sharpie before he wrote in a new marked down one. The store was pretty quiet for a Thursday afternoon, the day’s rain wasn't helping foot traffic and aside from their weekend deleted EP searches walk ins were their main customer base.

"Yeah, he wanted to see if I had anything but I'm not at the bar today so I sent him out with the name to try to find a copy from somewhere, expect a bill if you ever get rich and famous." Brian replied, chuckling a little at the idea of Frank being famous, he'd take over the world, it'd be horrifying.

"You should have sent him here. I'd have given him one for free or uploaded it for him so he could get it online." Frank grumbled attempting to juggle the phone as a girl with an undercut and really reflective sunglasses tried to buy Misfits records from him. Frank could actually see himself in them which was kind of cool and weird at the same time.

"They're half price at the moment yeah?" She asked, raising an eyebrow as he blinked at her for a moment before attempting to check the prices without dislodging the cd tower stacked beside the computer.

"Are you on the phone to me while you're at work? You fucking idiot, how do you even have one, let alone what is it, 4 jobs now?" Brain sighed, shutting his car door as he took a long drag from his smoke.

"It's called multitasking and yeah they are half price, well not this one, it's a red vinyl see, so it's the marked price of $40 which is still really good for what it is," Frank explained, trying not to smile as the girls eyebrows threatened to disappear into her hairline at his first comment.

"Sorry I'm sort of on the phone at the moment." Frank explained waving obviously at the phone in his hand.

"I never would have guessed." She drawled, rolling her eyes as she fished out the correct change to pay for the half price records.

"I'm hanging up on you so that you can go and do what you are paid for, for once, which by the way Frank, is not being a social goddamn butterfly." Brian snapped, grinding the butt of his cigarette out with the heel of his boot.

"No wait I need to, no not you, the person on the phone, why would you go anywhere I have your money and your records" Frank snapped, sighing as the sound of the line going dead rung out in his ear. A sharp gust of wet winter’s air broke across the shop as someone entered, though Frank took little notice as he attempted to wrestle the records into a bag without being set on fire by the sheer fury of the customers glare. He really did need to get a bit better at this didn't he?

"Have a good day?" Frank supplied as she took the bag and receipt from him, giving him a final glower before moving towards the front door.

Gerard hadn't been to a record store in months, though how many exactly he couldn’t be sure. Six, hmm maybe more, he wondered as he moved through the racks of CD's labeled 'local', he'd forgotten how many bands they had around here. For someone who did so much poster work he really was stunningly ignorant as to whom any of these bands were, when had music fallen so utterly on the wayside in his life?

"Now if you little shits could just scan and alter yourselves in the system that would be totally awesome" Frank grumbled, pouting at the towering stack of unpriced cd's before him. Andy always left him with this job, wanker. Frank considered options in which he could hide the cd's somewhere for someone else to find and price later without Andy noticing but couldn't really formulate a good enough plan that didn't involve jedi mind tricks or vulcan mind melds so he sighed and got on with it. Damn lacking in science fiction abilities, he was pretty sure Fun Ghoul could have figured out a better way to do this, though aside from the ability to blow things up, Frank wasn't really sure what Fun Ghoul could do. Not that he was called Fun Ghoul, it just worked better than, that comic book character that is sort of based off you that has no name yet.

"Hey so I need to get anything you have by Pencey Prep? I found one EP by them, but the cover just seems to be lined paper with the names of the songs written on them, is that like a sample or something?" Gerard asked the towering stack of cd's behind the counter that seemed to have arms and a price scanner.

Frank blinked, that sounded a lot like Gerard, putting down the cd he had been glaring at, (he was trying to make it evaporate with his mind) (but then he realized that he would have to account for lost stock if it did so he had stopped and then just sort of stared at it for a while) and well that looked a lot like Gerard.

"Nope, that's the front cover, now you understand why we need your help so much, I can totally sign this for you by the way, if you want," Frank teased, giggling as Gerard turned a little pink.  
"Oh, well, yes I can see how, is there anywhere you don't work?" Gerard finished, as usual, presenting himself as the wonderful charming man he so desired to be.

Frank grinned, pausing for a moment as if considering the question. "Well I was considering exotic dancing, I have a free afternoon every second Wednesday and I really could do with a little more cardio in my week, what do you think? Could I make it on the stage?"

"Depends if you could walk in the heels." Gerard replied, pondering the question himself, throwing Frank a little off balance.

"Are you imagining me in a pair of heels right now? I'll have you know I look damn good in heels!" He snapped, a little annoyed that his tactic hadn't caught Gerard off guard at all. Who was this guy? He blushed at frozen vegetables but could talk about stripping with a totally straight face.

"Actually to be honest I was considering how you'd look in full drag and then I got side tracked with color palettes that would suit you best," Gerard shrugged placing the cd on the counter. "You've got the stage presence for the job, so why not." He finished, causing Frank to go red around the ears.

"How would you know that?" Frank asked, taking the CD from the counter, pausing half way between scanning it and giving it back to Gerard.

"I saw you guys last week, Mikey took me to your show, I didn't know it was /your/ show at the time of course," Gerard replied, shrugging a little as he looked over at some weird kid skulking around the female folk section.

"Uhuh." Frank replied, glancing down at the CD for a moment, "So you saw us and then you saw me at the cafe the next day and you knew who I was but you didn't say anything?" Frank frowned as he scanned the CD, putting it into a paper bag and back down onto the counter.  
"You sort of took me by surprise; I hadn't been having a good morning," Gerard replied, waiting for Frank to tell him the price of the CD and stop staring at him with that weird glazed look on his face.

"Okay, coo.l" Frank replied, frowning a little more before he pushed the CD a little closer to Gerard, "Free of charge dude."

"You guys can't even pay for band posters, let me give you money for this, it all helps right?" Gerard asked, wincing a little as the words sunk in, "Not that I meant to imply that you need my money, I more meant, that I wanted to help support your band, which is why I am doing the band posters in the first place, for free, because you guys need help, but not that you, fuck fine." he finished picking up the CD. He'd managed to be cool for a little while at least right?

"No, no, it's fine I know what you meant, but a free CD of a band you probably don't even really like is the least we can do for all of the work you're doing for us, the sketches you sent through were great, the guys loved them." Frank replied quickly, attempting to save the situation, though he had to say he was rather happy to have awkward Gerard back.

Not that he didn't like the sass or Gerard thinking about him in high heels, if that was what he was into, not that Frank was into that or wanted to know what Gerard was into. Except maybe he did because the look he had in his eyes while he thought about that was sort of hot.

"I should have the coloring done by the start of next week, I needed the music to help with that so…" Gerard shrugged holding up the bag.

“Yeah cool, cool, well if you need anything you know where I’ll be, well you don’t, but you can call me, or just email, if that’s easier, that’s probably easier.” Frank finished, looking back down at the CD’s that were stacked in front of him. Man that was some seriously retarded rambling.

“Will do.” Gerard replied, smiling a little before he gave Frank a short wave, loitering for a few more seconds before heading off towards the front of the store, wondering if there was ever going to be a proper exchange between the two of them that didn’t end in soul crushing embarrassment for at least one of them.

Frank frowned as he listened to the bell chime as Gerard left the store, his fingers blind dialing the phone beside him.

“I. Don’t. Care.” Brian answered, his eyes roaming across the staff rosters before him, fuck he hated this time of year, everyone wanted leave at the exact same goddamn time and all the uni students were all too busy drinking themselves to death to turn up half the time.

“I think he actually hates me now.” Frank whined, resting his head against another stack of CD’s.

“I really don’t know how many times I can reiterate how incredibly much this is not my fucking problem, shall I start explaining it in other languages in the wild hope that one of them may penetrate that thick if not rather well styled head of yours?” Brian drawled, sticking a post-it note down angrily beside something before making a note on it.

“You aren’t making me feel any better you know.” Frank sighed, watching as a tall blonde girl got excited over a signed Nickleback single, what in the hell was the world coming to?

“You make yourself feel better, act like an adult, deal with life, deal with your stupid crush and don’t fuck this up because he’s the most consistent artist I have on the books, if not also the most talented, the entire world doesn’t revolve around you Iero, now is probably a good time to address that fact.” Brian explained, making another note before he glanced up to see Lambert flailing his arms around outside the window, he had black smudges on his hands and cheeks.

“I think my bar is on fire I have to go, suck it the fuck up and use your pretty head to put this shit mess to bed,” Brain sighed, hanging up as Frank made some quip about that being a good line for a song. What he would give for an awkward artist possibly thinking he was a moron to be the biggest concern in his life right now.

___  
"Gerard you did remember to take her shopping for school stuff right?" Gerard froze mid shoe removal, how had he forgotten about this? It involved stationary shopping, Gerard loved Stationary shopping.

"Oh shit." he murmured, nearly falling over as he attempted to walk in a half on half off shoe, Bandit giggled at him as she wandered out of the bathroom, waving at the phone as if her mother could see her before continuing back into her room.

"I'll be back in less than two weeks for her first day of school, but you need to make sure she has everything early, they sell out of that sort of stuff so quickly." Lyn explained, not entirely sure what she’d gotten herself into not remembering to take Bandit to get those things herself.

"Yeah, yeah that's fine I'll take her tomorrow.” Gee replied, tossing his shoes towards his bedroom as he made a beeline for the coffee machine, he’d almost gone two hours without caffeinating, that just wasn’t okay.

"Take Brian with you," Lyn explained, making a mental note to text Brian as soon as the conversation was over so Gee would have no excuse not to take him, he owed her a couple of favors anyway.

"I can do this myself." Gerard frowned, cursing a little when he noticed he’d forgotten to put a cup under the coffee machine.

"You're going to be taking her stationary shopping, take Brian, he makes lists and doesn't get excited over highlighters." Lyn warned, frowning a little as she pulled a pair of boots off the shelf in front of her, gaining a thumbs up from Kitty, as she herself tried on a pair of leopard print creepers.

"That was one time," Gerard grumbled, resettling the coffee machine with a fresh dose of coffee and something to actually catch it this time. Why did beverage preparation have to be so taxing?

"Bullshit." Lyn laughed, letting out a muffled hmph as she pulled the other boot on, tapping the toes together cheerfully as she listened to Gerard tell her about his day and Bandits creation of some kind of solidifying goo. She loved their weird science genius child.  
\--  
Brian does end up going shopping for school supplies with them both because he's the most organized and is also an idiot. Which so far has meant he gets to hold the basket and look unimpressed while Gerard and Bandit try and find the best color combination of backpack, note pad and pencil case. So far they’ve been trying for an hour, Brian is giving them another ten minutes before he attempts to stuff Gerard into the pink and yellow stripped backpack they’d come back to four times already.

"It's so nice to see a happy couple with their daughter," a cheerful shop attendant cooed as she wandered up beside him. Brian hated shop attendants.

"She's not my kid, my kid would wear shoes and wouldn't have sticks in her hair." Brian replied simply, ignoring the woman to check an email on his phone, apparently his accountant had been wrong about the problems he’d outlined at their last meeting, Brian had known his outgoings were balanced correctly, why did he pay these people if they couldn’t do their damn jobs?

"Oh so you adopted?" the woman asked, smiling a little more as Bandit waved a yellow pencil case at Gerard talking far too fast to be comprehensible. Gerard seemed to be doing something similar though with hand gestures in some kind of demented form of sign language, goddamn artists.

"We're not together," Brian replied dryly, throwing the woman a sideways glare before focusing back on the mess of colors and small children before him.

"It's alright, we don't discriminate here," She trilled, placing a hand over her heart like they were in some kind of day time charity ad, Brian was pretty sure he was going to be physically ill.  
"Good for you, that doesn't change the fact that he is not my 'partner' or whatever the fuck you want to call it and she's not my kid, sorry we can't be lumped into your happy gay minority folder lady but that's that." By this point Brian was pretty sure he was going to try and cram the ray of fucking sunshine into the backpack with Gerard before setting it on fire if they didn’t leave in approximately 35 seconds. Yes he owed Lyn a couple of favors and she still had that one picture on her phone of him in a dress that was not allowed to see the light of day, but none of that was worth this kind of bullshit.

"Now now Bri, stop torturing the shop attendants, I'm sorry he's always doing that." Gerard grinned, placing their needed items in the basket as Bandit came up to lean against Brian’s leg, giggling as Gerard put an arm around him.

"I will kill you." Brian hissed as the shop woman in front of them attempted to sort of back away while still smiling politely. Brian grinned inwardly at that, at least he’d gotten his normal people scarring out of the way for today.

"With the crayons you're holding?" Gerard cooed, leaning his head on Brian’s shoulder for added dramatic effect, goddamn primadonna absent minded fuckwit.

"If anyone could it would be me." Brian replied simply, handing Bandit another slice of apple before flicking Gerard in the side of the head so he’d get the hell off him.

"This is true" Gerard replied gravely before wandering off towards the shelving section. It was going to be a long night Brian could feel it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I have made a tumblr that will have fan mixes, photo's and other things related to the fic. As soon as I am done coding the layout I shall pop the link up.


	5. The one where Gerard almost ruins his future and Frank wears a fabulous hat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "True, he's pretty magical, you known them for a while?” Frank frowned, contemplating gravity levels inside an afro, wondering if the material fibres of the hair would fuck with the physics at all, maybe that was the key to these magical lands, fucked up physics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay SO! This chapter is shorter than the others and I am super super sorry, but I kept on trying to write the parts after this and they just didn't work with this as a whole chapter. Plus I started my uni degree and it ended up being so overwhelming this is litereatlly the first free time I have had since january (I just sent off my last piece of Theory work for the next few weeks, Fine Arts is EVIL) 
> 
> Anyway, I'm about to hit semester break, which should bring on the already half completeled chapter 6 and a likely 7th chapter to make up for me taking 25 years to write this. I am so so so sorry. As usual thanks to Emily for being mad at me for not writing and Skye for literally everything.

"So it's raining outside." Frank's voice grumbled down the line of Mikey’s rather sparkly IPhone . Gerard had designed the cover of it for his birthday the year before, skeletal my little pony unicorns, it was the punkest pretty thing ever.

"I hadn't noticed" Mikey replied, sliding down the couch a little more as he watched Bandit run through their living room with a cup trying to catch water as it dripped from the ceiling while Alicia followed her around with her phone, trying to get some good videos to send to Lindsey.

"Do you want to like, let me the fuck in, or shall I just continue to stand in the rain until I wash away with the groceries I bought to cook and then feed to you with my hard earned dollar dollar bills?" Frank snarked causing Mikey to groan a little, waving his hand towards the buzzer button.

"You're not the wicked witch of the west, you won't melt, plus I'm sitting and the button is far away."

"You are everything that is wrong with today's youth." Frank stated solemnly sounding far too much like Brian for either of their liking.

“ 'Licia can you let Frank in?" Mikey whined from the couch, letting out a yelp as Alicia dumped Bandits half filled mug of water onto his lap as she passed him, carrying a wildly giggling Bandit in her other arm.

"Sure thing honey." She replied sweetly, holding Bandit up so she could press the button. Those two were the worst influence upon one another. They were never having kids, Mikey was defiantly sure on that now. Alicia with a battalion of sassy youngsters would be too likely to take over the world. Mikey did not have the emotional or mental energy to have to deal with that. They could just borrow Bandit every once in a while.

"Go get the hats," Alicia grinned, putting Bandit down so she could rush back into the kitchen to retrieve the present she had made for Frank earlier in the afternoon. Shaking her head Alicia opened their front door, laughing at a very soggy Frank as he stumbled out of the lift, looking murderous, so like usual really.

"Did you swim here?"

Frank glowered, lips curling to form a line of curses as Bandit appeared in view, cutting him off mid "Fuc-ntion, function-ing." Frank finished because fuck there was no where to go with that sentence as Bandit waved something white and wonky at him. Well it wasn't entirely white, it had glitter on it and something that looked sort of like Hazowiin on it... Wait.

"It's a chefs hat!" She explained as Alicia shouldered half of the groceries into the kitchen so Frank had a spare hand.

"With Halloween written on it?" Frank chuckled, grinning down at the bouncing girl in front of him, man, this kid was fucking awesome.

"B has one too, she made it this afternoon." Mikey replied, still out of sight, laying lazily on the couch, soggy but comfortable enough to not bother fixing the problem yet.

"Well thank you for that, great apartment oracle, if you see one Mikeyway please tell him that he's and Ahole for nearly causing his best friend to die in a watery suburban grave." Frank called, bending down to allow Bandit to wrestle the hat onto his still dripping head.

"Why don't we get Frankie dried off first B?" Alicia asked, laughing a little as Frank righted himself, his chefs hat deflated but staying defiantly upon his head.

"You look beeee-oo-tiful” Bandit sung out, bouncing a little more as Mikey dragged himself into a sitting position, his phone coming into view first, shutter clicking in the tell tale sign of an embarrassing instagram update.

"Priceless." Mikey mumbled, scrolling through the different filters, trying to decide which one would make Frank look most horrible while still showing off his sweet photographic skills, that shit was hard to balance.

"Thanks B" Frank smiled, obliging her as she started to rifle through the bags he still had in his other hand, half leading him into the kitchen as she chattered about the strange vegetables he had brought. Not that Frank thought they were weird, like seriously, how had Bandit never seen an eggplant before? Eggplant was the best.

"She hasn't stopped talking for like 3 hours straight" Mikey mumbled over a cup of coffee a few minutes later, doing that weird stealthy gangly ninja thing he always did, just fucking appearing behind you.

"I think your super power is ninja coffee making skills, that and looking more disenchanted than a kid who just saw Disney Land being set on fire." Frank replied, only jumping a little at Mikey’s appearing act, he was mostly used to it by now.

"Take one of me and Frank in our hats then you can send it to mummy!" Bandit squeaked, elbowing past Mikey to climb up onto Franks lap, because fuck, apparently Frank was just another part of the human climbing frame that was close family friends in this kids mind. Cool, whatever.

"Pull a funny face pretty Frank!" Alicia called in a fake sugary tone that caused Mikey's expression to even out to what could almost be described as a smile as Franks eyebrows disappeared into his dripping hair line and Bandit pulled some pretty cool rock and roll hand signs and stuck her tongue out. The flash blinded Frank for a moment as Bandit bounced around, fixing his hat before disappearing back to Alicia to ponder over what to put in the text message to her mother. Kids and technology kind of freaked Frank out these days, he saw a 3 year old working an Ipad the other day like a total pro, Frank couldn't even turn them on.

"Mikey looks weird." Bandit whispered, giggling a little as Alicia smiled at the photo.

"The normal awkward white guy thing doesn't really suit him does it?" Alicia chuckled, continuing to type as Bandit dictated the rest of the message.

"Man the girl power is strong in those ones." Frank laughed as Mikey dumped a towel on his head and pointedly did nothing to help set up the kitchen for dinner. Frank had lived with Mikey for a while before he and Alicia had gotten their place together so he wasn't exactly surprised by the younger ways actions.

"I still don't understand why we can't have pizza like we do every other Thursday night." Mikey mumbled, power scrolling through his tumblr, Frank could tell by his expressions and how many times he had to click the screen to do things. Quick double taps meant he was on instagram, furrowed brows and hesitant taps for tumblr and general distaste usually meant facebook. Frank frowned as he pondered his in depth knowledge of his best friends internet habits, was there ever such a thing as knowing someone too well?

"What are we making tonight Ironchef Frankenstien?" Alicia hummed, laughing a little as Frank straightened his shoulders, looking towards her slowly as if she were the camera man on the ironchef set.

"A master never divulges his secrets!" He exclaimed, wiggling his eyebrows and entirely ruining the effect of his previous statement, causing both girls to piss themselves as Mikey huffed a sigh and disappeared behind his coffee cup.

"Vegetarian pamasagne?"

“No."

"Stewed apples in a creamy sauce of hopes and dreams?”

"Close..." Frank hummed, producing a tiny apple from the last bag on the counter to give to a delighted Bandit. "Vegetarian lasagne."

"And we're going to help!" Bandit proclaimed before taking a large bite out of her apple, chewing it enthusiastically. 

"Well you and Mikey are going to help, Alicia has a date with carnage and video games for a little while.” Alicia smiled, winking at Frank as Mikey paused in his reblogging to glower at his wife. She'd gotten the kid all riled up and now he was going to dump him with Frank the high functioning 5 year old and his year younger counterpart?

"You are the worst wife ever." Mikey dead panned, looking out across the kitchen as if it the silver and white expanse held some kind of insightful answer to all of life’s answers. It had a toaster that actually looked like the brave little toaster, which ruled, but that wasn't really want he needed right now.

"Ha ha ha, where in our marriage contract does it say that I have to get up and help out in the kitchen Mr Simmons?" Alicia singsonged a few moments later, letting out a cheer as she took out a couple guys in her current game of Call of Duty. "WHO'S A PRINCESS NOW?!"

"She has issues." Mikey mumbled from behind his phone, his eyebrows doing a weird sort of twitch as he blinked and looked at Frank again. "Yeah we've got some pills for her."

"Dude," Frank laughed, giving Bandit a thumbs up as she rearranged the vegetables he had on the bench into their proper colour groups before shifting them into an unconventional but rather aesthetically pleasing rainbow. Who would have though red then purple, yellow and green, would work so well together?

"What we do, they're like natural things that are meant to help her sleep or something." Mikey shrugged, shifting to take photo's of Bandit as she continued to make her rainbow, adding 'fuck the police' to the image before he sent it to both of her parents.

"Oh." Frank blinked, giggling a little as he went back to cutting up the carrots, only just missing Mikey’s fingers as he leant in to steal a piece every now and then.

"The fuck did you think I meant?" Mikey mumbled, making sure not to lift his tone high enough for Bandit to hear, he loved the kid but it was going to be a hell of a lot nicer when she was like 12 or whenever and they could all talk like normal people around her again.

"Does this whole swearing around kids thing get easier?" Frank asked, taking Mikey’s thoughts straight out of his brain like some kind of fucked up, indie kid fortune teller. What the hell Frank.

"I figure once she goes to school she’ll be so surrounded by it all the time that our slip ups won't matter." Mikey replied in his usual monotone, flicking his eyes up to watch Bandit clatter around with a couple of wooden spoons. They'd have to get Bob to start teaching her drums soon, she'd probably rock the hell out of them.

"Well, look at you so filled with hope for the public schooling system." Frank drawled, wheezing out a laugh as he paused for a moment to watch Bandit as well. She was such a weirdly interesting kid.

"Yeah cause you can talk locker boy." Mikey huffed rolling his eyes as he went back to the magical world that was the internet.

"Man if anyone stuffs her in a locker-" Frank paused, his jaw setting a little as Mikey finished his sentence without so much as blinking.

"They end up in Ray's lake?"

"Exactly." Frank frowned, worry creeping in to the back of his mind, school had crushed most of the creativity out of him from beginning to end he wasn't half as brilliant as Bandit. He really fucking hoped she got lucky and ended up with some good people around her. Considering Gerard’s seeming total disregard for the rest of the world around him when he was working Frank supposed Bandit was likely to have a similar instinctual strength within her. After all how many kids had a talented successful artist and a rock star for parents?

"What are you two old ladies mumbling about in here? It's not every day we get little miss B to ourselves, shouldn't we make the most of it?" Alicia called from the other room, Mikey could hear her doing one of her victory dance, nearly falling over several of Bandits 'sculptures' from earlier in the day. That was another thing that was going to change, if the girls wanted to crafternoon they could do it at Gee's he had so much paint in his carpet it didn't matter. Plus he was sick of them pillaging his good glitter.

"She comes over like once ever three days, what are we going to do? Give her a mohawk and highlights?" Mikey grumbled, ignoring Frank as he smiled at him, Frank was a little in love with the both of them. Their marriage was pretty much everything he could want, how often did someone get to marry their best friend?

Frank's grin broke when he met Alicia's eye as she reentered the kitchen, still dancing a little. Both ducking as Mikey moved to swat them about the head, shimmying past them to take Bandits hand and lead her out of the kitchen.

"Oh come on!" Frank crowed rolling his eyes as Alicia started eating some of the raw chopped up zucchini like what the actual fuck?

"You two are so weird." Mikey sighed as bandit winged at him about going back into the kitchen.

"Wouldn't it be weirder still if we weren't?" Alicia asked raising an eyebrow as Frank scowled at her, since when did the king of all things that grew from the earth judge people for eating vegetables?

"No way."

"No Way, little Way, well littler." Frank corrected giving Bandit a smile as she scurried her way back into the kitchen, holding a bowl that Alicia handed to her so that she could put the left over veggie bits into it.

"Dude I am the taller than all of you..." Mikey frowned a little harder, stealing more carrot just for the hell of it.

"Yeah but Gerard is older." Frank replied waving his knife in Mikey’s general direction.

"Numerically on this earth maybe but not emotionally." Mikey huffed, waving his hand back in response.

"Or life experience-y" Alicia piped in, grinning at Mikey’s cringe at her grammatical anomaly, she did love to ruffle her husbands feathers like that. "We had to teach him how to use an electric can opener."

Mikey's jaw sort of twitched then loosened a little, which was tantamount to a smile for him as he relived the memory. "He didn't know what it was and we caught him poking it with a fork yelling "Reveal your secrets" he looked so much like Snape it was amazing."

"Did it reveal it's secrets?"

"It opened the can of tuna."

"Same thing. Now Madam B, shall I teach you how to make super awesome Italian beschemel sauce now? My Grandma taught me when I was about your age." Frank smiled, as Bandit nodded so hard her hat almost fell off.

__

Gerard’s meeting was supposed to end around 9 giving them some time to head out for drinks before Scott and the others headed back to their hotel. It wasn't quite 8:30 when Gerard pulled up outside Mikey's unit block. He hadn't called or so much as texted his brother to let him know he was coming over, he'd been a little too busy driving around the block listening to music too loud rolling between panic attacks and total fucking livid anger. Safe to say the meeting hand't gone well.

"Is there a reason your brother is walking around your tiny ass-usual parking lot out front talking to himself?" Frank asked, peaking out through the curtains to check the rain situation with hopes of nicking downstairs for a smoke. 

Gerard wasn't talking to himself, well he was, but not int he crazy person way, it was more in a saying his thoughts out loud so they stopped over filling his head really.

"He's not even supposed to be finished with his meeting" Mikey frowned, checking his phone, he hadn't called or texted him either, what the hell was going on.

"I'll go down and check on him.” Frank offered, as he continued to watch Gerard out the curtain. 

"No it's fine I can go.” Mikey shook his head already making his way towards the door. If Gerard was already back the night was either cancelled or had been one hell of a disaster, considering the recent emails Gerard had been dodging Mikey didn’t really need to guess the likely outcome. 

"It's cool, I needed to go for a smoke anyway, I'll text you if he's going proper nuclear.” Frank replied, dragging his coat on as he danced past Mikey who was trying to hold a rather loud Bandit back as she attempted to escape towards Frank and the now open door.   
 “I want to see Daddy!” she called, frowning as Alicia explained her fathers need for an adult talk with Frank. Giving him the needed time to slip out the door and into the lift. 

__

"It could have gone worse, sure it should have gone better, but creative control is always going to be a bit of a fuck around and it's your first comic, of course they're going to argue on anything too dramatic.” Gerard explained to the cold wind around him, running his hands through his already rather insane looking hair, turning on his heel to get a face full of Frank.

"FUCK!" they both snapped, as Gerard stumbled backwards a little, only just managing to catch himself at the last moment before he landed face first into the rather damn gravel at their feet.

"Woah dude are you alright? How can you have Mikey Way for a brother and be that easily spooked? Fuck.” Frank laughed a little awkwardly, pulling his coat around him, it was still sort of damn and it was really fucking cold out here. 

"Well I usually haven't been having one of the worst nights of my artistic career, so there's that,” Gerard offered, his own laugh dying before it met his lips. 

"... Well shit.” Frank blinked, there would have to be a time when Gerard didn’t catch him off guard, tonight was defiantly not going to be the night for that. 

"That wasn't fair sorry.” Gerard waved, turning a little so that the shadows of the parking lot fell across his face, feeling for what must have been the millionth time that evening, like a right moron. 

"No no dude it's fine, I came down to check on you, I wasn't expecting you to be sunshine and rainbows, though maybe wave up to Mikey so he doesn't call emergency services and your mum or something.” Frank replied nodding up to where Mikey was spying on them through the curtains, making strange wavy actions with his hands.

"Oh, right.” Gerard blinked, doing a strange set of arm waves and gestures of his own that appeared to be some kind of code or language because by the end Mikey looked a lot less pissed off and retreated back into the living room.

"You good?” Frank asked, watching Gerard a little cautiously. 

"I've been better.” Gerard shrugged, kicking at the rocks beneath their feet, it was easier when he didn’t have to look at Frank or anyone for that matter. 

"At least you didn't lose bandit again.” Frank offered, giving Gerard a gentle smile. 

"True and I didn't have glitter on my face this time.” Gerard added, the ghost of a smile shifting across his features. 

"Also good, though I don't know, the Ziggy star dust thing really does work, I still think you'd look great with the red hair.” Frank shrugged, smiling in earnest now, the memories of their past meetings making him laugh at himself a little as he pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, offering the packet to Gerard as he leant back against the bonnet of his car. 

Gerard chuckled, taking the offered cigarette, "Lucky strikes? Oh Frank"

"Oh Frank nothing, we don't all have your amazing lung capacities thank you very much Mr Malboro Reds.” Frank countered, grinning around his cigarette as he watched Gerard slide one between his lips. 

"How the fuck do you know that?” he asked, pausing with his lighter in mid air, looking at Frank incredulously. 

"I've got a good nose, my ex used to smoke them.” Frank offered, leaning in to light Gerard’s cigarette for him, feeling entirely excellent at his smooth gentlemanly move. 

“Ah.” Gerard nodded, lighting his smoke from the offered flame, nodding once more in thanks before exhaling slowly. 

Frank swallowed slowly, watching the lazy way in which Gerard smoked, there was something strangely decadent about it, the way the smoke curled from between his lips. Frank liked smoking but fuck, it was nothing on the way Gerard did it, it made Frank want to steal the taste straight from his lips. He could see it now, Gerard would taste like smoke and coffee and something sharp but smooth, it’d be so fucking easy to do it now, fit their mouths together and just kiss all that damn tension away. 

”Yeah, uh, anyway, we made food, your kid made me a hat with glitter on it. Gotta say man, you did good with that one.” Frank replied a few beats too late, shaking his head to get it the fuck back in the game. 

Gerard smiled a little more, weezing out a gentle laugh, "She's pretty great yeah. Adores the hell out of you too, I think she likes you even more than she likes Rays hair."

"Now that is a feat, kids adore his fro, I don't know what it is, maybe they think it'll let them into Narnia.” Frank chuckled, imagining Ray with an entire kingdom inside his hair, it was a little too easy to imagine really. The guy just has so much fucking hair. 

"Wouldn't surprise me if it did.” Gerard replied as if they were talking about the fucking weather. 

"True, he's pretty magical, you known them for a while?” Frank frowned, contemplating gravity levels inside an afro, wondering if the material fibres of the hair would fuck with the physics at all, maybe that was the key to these magical lands, fucked up physics. 

"Yeah since art school, we met through a mutual friend, I played in a band with him for a while.” Gerard explained, shocking Frank out of his magical hair science brain tangent. 

"Shit dude, that's rad, I've been chasing him to play with me for years.”

"He's been out of that side of it for a while, Bob's the same I think.” Gerard explained, eyes sliding shut for a moment, allowing the slow curl of smoke to warm his lungs. 

"So what'd you do?” Frank asked, doing a wonderfully crap job of keeping the interest out of his voice. The guy was musical as well as arty? Fuuuuuuck. 

"Played shitty guitar and sung a bit.” Gerard offered rather reluctantly, he wasn’t ever exactly in the mood to talk about his short lived days as the lead singer in a string of shitty bands. 

"You sing?"

"I used to.”

"Come on, you've seen me up on stage making a fool of myself.” Frank whined, biting at his lip ring as his brain began to wander down tangents involving Gerard on stage clutching microphones in dim lighting.

"And you have seen me doing art, we're even, I don't sing anymore.” Gerard finished, his tone making it entirely clear that this line of conversation needed to come to a fast conclusion. 

"Killjoy" Frank teased, smiling like an idiot as Gerard barked out a laugh, kicking gravel at him.

"Was the meeting really that bad?” 

Gerard grimaced at Frank through his hair, the yellow light of the street reflecting in the depths of his eyes, making him seem smaller and further away than Frank liked. His face shifted a little, his lips curling around an expression that didn't really fit on Gerard’s face, it was nasty and oddly disloyal to the person Frank had met all those weeks ago back in his shitty little store.

"I could have possibly destroyed something that I've been working on for twenty years." The sound that huffed it's way from Gerard’s chest may have been a sad laugh, if he'd had the energy, instead he just seemed to deflate a little.

Frank rubbed his own arms, his fingers itching to reach out and comfort Gerard or fucking shake him back into the awkward artist from the coffee store or well anything really, rather than just leaving him to stand watching Gerard splinter in front of him. Maybe he should have let Mikey field this one.

"I've wanted this for such a long time, gave up chances to do other things, burnt bridges, lost friends, disappointed a while bunch of people and now I'm looking to throw this away as well." Gerard did laugh this time, though the sound was as hard as his expression.

 

"And now of course I'm dumping my perfect little life’s problems on a near stranger, I thought you were supposed to get smarter in your 30's?" Gerard sighed, his fingers caught in his hair as he looked anywhere but at Frank.

"I'm not a stranger and you're not dumping anything, no ones life is perfect, from the slivers of information Mikey’s leaked over the years I have known him your life hasn't exactly been all bells and whistles dude. People fuck up, they yell at their sound mixers or band managers or editors of their comic books. We love what we do, so we have a lot of emotion wrapped up in it, we fuck up. That's life, that's being so caught up in everything around you that you step on other peoples toes in your rush to show them all of the beautiful shit you're doing." Frank explained, waving his arms around in the air a little as he smiled lightly. "I don't think it's possible to be an artist and not be a fuck up."

Gerard shook his head, the corner of his lips tugging up a little a he watched Frank stumble his way a little closer.

"Did they tell you, you were fired?" Frank asked, waving his packet of smokes around, allowing Gerard to snatch another one a few moments later.

"No." Gerard mumbled around the cigarette as he searched his pockets for a lighter.

"Did they tell you that you couldn't write anymore comics?" Frank followed up, raising an eyebrow as he flicked his lighter into life.

"No." Gerard supplied once Frank made it rather clear that he was going to keep the fire to himself unless Gerard played fair and fessed up. Tricksie wanker.

"So you got a bit shitty and fucked up a meeting, they'll get over it and maybe you showing your passion will make them rethink why you were disagreeing in the first place." Frank shrugged, leaning against the now rather cool bonnet of Gerard’s banged up old car leaning back to look up at the sky, letting Gerard’s brain slowly tick over beside him. 

"You're pretty good at that." Gerard murmured a few minutes later, causing Frank to twitch a little at the sudden break in their rather comfortable silence.

"I've fucked up a lot, gotta get something out of it right?" Frank replied, flashing Gerard his most winning of smiles, making the other man wheeze into his jacket a little. He really liked making Gerard laugh, like a lot, the way his entire body seemed to change, curled in on itself, shaking with laughter was really sort of amazing to watch. It was certainly something Frank could get used to. 

__

"They're laughing.” Mikey murmured, watching Frank and Gerard through the curtains as Bandit called to Alicia from the kitchen, trying to count how many minutes were left of the timer on the oven. 

"That's good.” Alicia replied, pausing beside her husband for a moment to watch Gerard and Frank laugh a little more, it was nice to see the two of them happy, it had been too long for both of them. 

"Yeah but…” Mikey frowned a little more, his fingers curling into the dusty material. 

"Mikey it's good, Gerard hasn't so much as met someone new in months. Plus it's Frank, we love frank.” Alicia sighed, pressing a careful hand to the small of her husbands back, she could feel the tension tying itself in knots right down his spine. 

"That's not, that's not the point.” Mikey admitted, his eyes caught on the two dark figures below, an unreadable expression shadowing at the back of his eyes. 

"Then what is?” 

"You wouldn't understand.” He replied, moving past her to check on Bandit in the kitchen, leaving Alicia in the hallway, utterly lost for words. 

___

“So I think Mikey’s title of ‘best uncle in the world’ is in jeopardy.” Alicia explained, frowning down at the words in front of her, sometimes it was sort of amazing the crap she could spout. What the fuck did ‘tumbling soundscapes enthralling and rattling the mind’ even mean? 

“Did Ray’s hair actually turn out to be a unicorn? Because if so you all owe me so much money because I called that from day one.” Lyn replied, taking a long thoughtful sip of her smoothie.   “Shaking the mind could work better,” Alicia mumbled before coming back to earth, “Yeah, well no, no that hasn’t happened yet, we’re waiting though, it really can be the only logical explanation for why it is so attractive to young children.” Alicia finished, scratching out the entirety of her second paragraph, she really needed to get into better note making habits because this was one hell of mess right now.

“You really need to stop calling me when you’re working.” Lyn scolded, fumbling around for a lighter, for all her usual organisation she never managed to hold onto her lighters, then again it wasn’t really helped by sharing a bus with a bunch of lighter thieves.   “Yes well if I’m not working I’m at gigs, which well is working, or I’m running around after your idiot best friend and his dorky little brother-“ “Who is your husband.” Lyn interjected, causing Alicia to huff at her.   “Details details, anyway, I’m busy and I love you, so I call you.” She finished, laying her pen down as their current conversation settled into her brain.  “Anyway, more importantly, Frank has pretty much taken over top spot and I think Mikey’s a little well… Sore.” Alicia explained, biting her lip as she looked at the mess of glitter and glue sticks still laid out across their coffee table. She really needed to replace Mikey’s good glitter like she’d promised, he got super weird about things like that.   “Who is this magical Frank person anyway?” Lyn frowned around her cigarette, smiling into the curl of smoke deep in her lungs. “I mean I’ve seen photo’s and heard stories, I know he’s in Pencey who I’ve heard of, though I haven’t managed to catch a show, the guys have mentioned him on occasion but suddenly he’s just sort of there.” 

Alicia laughed, making her way into the kitchen to make coffee, considering a pages worth of editing fair trade for a coffee break, couldn’t work too hard, she’d kill her artistic juices or whatever they were. “Well yeah, that’s just sort of Frank really, he’s there all of a sudden and you can’t get rid of him, he’s a good guy, sweet as hell, a bit of a shit, but then again a lot of our lovely boys are, so who am I to complain. He got Mikey into eating eggplant.” 

“Ok so he’s a keeper.” Lyn laughed.  “Lindsay you do not understand the struggle I have had over the past few years trying to force that bean pole I call a husband to eat ‘weird’ vegetables, for someone who’s such a big fan of the veggie burger he won’t so much as look twice at eggplant or zucchini.” 

Lyn laughed again, coughing a little as the air caught in her lungs, Mikey in a stubborn period was sort of priceless, the kid was born into perpetual bitch face but his quiet tantrums were truly something to behold. 

“I did notice the vegetables in the background of the pictures you sent me, from the look of my little B she’s been rather enjoying herself, she’s even started making them matching outfits.” Lyn noted, ever proud of her daughters already blossoming artistic abilities.   “And he’s good for Gee.” Alicia added, smiling a little at the memory of the night before, the group of them crowded around their too small table, sharing stories of their day, Bandit giggling her head off, Gerard smiling, Frank laughing like an idiot, it’d been too long since she’d seen either of her friends happy like that. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, when he came over the other night he wasn’t good, we didn’t even know he was here until Frank noticed him through the living room window. I don’t know if he was too stressed to call or wasn’t sure if he wanted to see Mikey, you know what Gerard’s like, when he’s upset he tends to do before he thinks.” Alicia explained, fingers drumming along the side of her cup as the happier memories slid a little out of focus.   Lyn nodded along with Alicia’s words, humming a reply as she turned the information over in her mind, she’d noticed he’d been a little strange over the phone lately but things sounded worse than she’d picked up on. Never a good sign. 

“Mikey wanted to go down to him, talk him through it, but Frank sort of side stepped him and fielded it. It was pretty amazing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gerard come out of a panic like that so fast. It’s hard sometimes, stepping out of the big brother role to let Mikey comfort him, though Mikey isn’t really seeing it that way right now.”     
“They’ve never been too good at taking help from others when the other ones mental health is concerned, they’re too alike.” Lyn replied in agreement, absently watching as Steve hung what appeared to be a pair of sodden jeans over the window cill. She wasn’t even going to ask, it probably involved Jimmy, scratch that, it defiantly did.

“Which is sort of hard with Frank being Mikey’s best friend these days. He’s not happy with them spending so much time together, the others think it’s great, I mean we’ve noticed a difference you know? Gee’s never been great at breaking out his shell but Frank’s sort of helping him with that.” Alicia shrugged, spooning sugar into her coffee.   “Mikey didn’t even like me to start with.” Lindsay laughed, recounting the first time she’d met Mikey, all long blonde hair and twisted brow, scowling at her through his over sized glasses. Then they’d started talking music and he’d turned into the awkward musical genius they all knew and loved, the Way’s really didn’t mess around with their brotherly protectiveness though, Lyn was still sort of amazed that Frank had managed to get to Gerard the other night without Mikey locking him in a cupboard or something equally as odd. 

“Considering how messed up Gee was back then I’m not surprised, a harsh wind could have nocked him over the edge.” Alicia replied before testing her coffee, happy with her only mild tongue scoldings. 

“He’s not like that anymore.” Lyn breathed, closing her eyes against the memories, ever present and ready to haunt her at a damn moments notice. 

  “Try telling Mikey that.”


	6. The one where Frank does what he always does and Gerard does something he hasn't done in a long time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Great let’s smear animal fat all over me, because this evening wasn't already completely humiliating.” Frank huffed, sinking down a little as he leaned against the window, letting out a slow series of coughs, he really was too tired for this shit right now. 
> 
> “I was thinking WD40; if it gets rusty screws out it would have to work on my log headed roommate.” Jamia offered, scrolling through the numerous photo's she and Grant had just taken, showing the occasional extra funny one to Gerard who giggled guiltily. 
> 
> “I am not a rusty screw.” Frank grumbled, trying to give Jamia the finger without being able to actually see her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is dedicated to Skye, it's our one year anniversary and I couldn't do this or anything else without you, you perfect bloody human. Also I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK LIKE A YEAR. I am terrible, I really am, on the upside, schools out for the summer in less than a month, so that means going nocturnal and writing fanfiction till my eyeballs bleed. Please forgive me <3

The Way brothers weren't morning people, as a rule neither of them scheduled anything of relevant importance to be addressed before 11am because it just wouldn't get done. What made things even stranger at the merry hour of 9:30 am was that  Gerard hadn’t touched his coffee yet, mainly because he was drinking Ray’s by mistake, it had hazelnut in it which was delicious though he was likely to be drinking the wrong coffee due to the fact that he wasn’t really paying attention to anything properly because he was drawing and smiling stupidly at things.

“ You look too happy for it to be morning.” Brian grumbled suspiciously, pointing at Gerard until Bob paused to watch him doodling away at a new design Brian had floated his way earlier in the week.

“ I’m just feeling… creative.” Gerard hummed, taking a moment too long to meet Brian’s eye, a rather silly smile still clinging to the corner of his lips.

“ Did you smoke a packet of cigarettes before you came in?” Brian asked, frowning a little harder as Bob leant in to smell Gerard before he could answer.

“ Smells like usual unwashed artist to me.” Bob muttered before stealing the last of the sprinkle donut Gerard had left for him, heading off to figure out what the tech guys from the night before had done to his simplistic but very well laid out cord arrangements, fucking amateurs.

“ I had a, not good night, but not bad night, so it was a night, I suppose, but it ended better than it started or middled, which is always a good thing, though considering how it middled that wouldn’t have been hard, but it sort of was because of how bad it was.” Gerard explained, watching Brian’s eyebrows knot themselves into a near pretzel shape before he stuffed a cigarette between his lips and sat down on a spare milk crate.

“ You know that an evening can’t fucking middle right?” Brian started, wondering if they needed to get both of the Way brothers checked for mental instability, Mikey hadn't exactly been himself lately either, maybe they needed some nice mood stabilisers or just a really fucking strong cup of camomile tea, a sugar free diet probably wouldn’t hurt either.

“ Well it can because it does, at least this one did.” Gerard blinked, chewing on his lip as he looked back down to sketch, pausing to frown at the hand that was blocking his way, the hand which on further investigation was linked to the rest of Brains grouchy smoking body.

“ The fuck is going on with all of you? Mikey is a pissy ball of anxiety, Bob’s quiet and madder than usual, Ray’s a fucking ghost, Franks an idiot, okay so that is normal and you’re a ray of happy sunshine, it’s not that we’ve got all shit cards in this hand kid but somethings not right with the whole balance of the force or however you want to spell it out. So explain.” Brain replied in rather calm and careful tones, rolling his eyes at Bob as he shook his head at the smoke curling from between his lips. His house, his fucking rules.

“ As in a ray, like our Ray? Or ray as in beam, because beam would have been a better use of wording in that sentence. Your structure goes right out the window when you get mad, Brian.” Gerard explained, moving his page a little as Brian sort of hummed with pure rage beside him.

“ Ray’s freaking out because he didn’t realise he was life partners with Bob, Bob is pissed because Ray isn’t dealing with the weird mental break down he’s having, Mikey is pissed because Gerard is paying too much attention to Frank, Frank is an idiot because that’s who he is as a person, Gerard’s happy because Frank’s new and nice and makes Mikey eat food and lets Alicia laugh in a way Gerard hasn’t seen her do in a while and Bandit seems to love him which is good because she was getting really sad about her mother being gone for a while.” Lambert explained, leaning in to steal the last of Brian’s cigarette as Gerard made a couple of contour shades on the face he had just marked out.

“ Sound about right G?” Gerard nodded as Lambert winked at Brian, giving him a ‘no need to thank me’ smile before sauntering off behind the bar.

“ It’s surprising what you find out when you listen to people instead of being a cranky old dude face.” Gerard replied, looking up to smile at Bandit as she attempted to carry way too many leads at once, dropping almost all of them as Bob wandered behind her picking them up, gentle as always with the tiny person running around in front of him.

“ Your comebacks seriously suck these days Way.” Brian sighed, cursing the clock for its hours until 12. Owning a bar meant making deals with yourself; no beers, no matter how bad your day was, until at least lunch time. Today was definitely going to be a lunch time beer fest.

“ I’m a parent, we have to keep it PG as often as possible, don’t want something especially horrific slipping out when you’re chiding your 4 year old. Last thing I need is her calling someone a monkey penis at kindergarten.” Gerard shrugged, chewing on the end of his already mauled pencil.

Brian frowned, “That’s still a lame comeback...”

“ Your mum’s a lame comeback.”

“ My mum could kick your ass.”

“ I don’t doubt it…’ Gerard hummed as he went to find Bandit, following her cries of delight at the towering 4-year-old piggy back machine known as Bob Bryar.

_

Mikey wasn't in the mood to converse with people, it was morning and Gerard was still all moon faced over Frank and their perfect sodding dinner date the night before. To make matters worse Mikey was also attempting to figure out how to dodge his weekly slack off date with Frank, considering the knot that was forming in his stomach at the mere thought of his so called best friend. Mikey really didn't want to see how being in the same room as the overly tattooed midget would pan out. The last thing he needed was a D and M session with Bob, but considering how rare those were he was sort of obliged to do the good friend thing and listen in, or at least sit around not looking totally pissed off as Bob talked shit though.

"Ray’s being weird." Bob supplied helpfully as he frowned at the cigarette smoke spinning on the wind away from them. There hadn't been any rain yet but the wind was angry as fuck today, a storm probably wasn't too far off. Mikey sort of hoped Bob got his shit-talking out of the way before it hit, soggy didn't suit anyone who wore as much eyeliner or hair product as they did.

"Ray is weird." Mikey offered, folding himself onto a stray old chair at the back entrance, shaking his head as Bob offered him a smoke. Alicia wanted him to quit, he sort of wanted them all to if they could, and they were getting too old for this sort of thing.

"That's not the point." Bob grumbled, kicking at a stray can beneath his feet moodily.   
“He's not being you know, Ray weird, he's being weird weird.” Bob added helpfully.

"Oi Gerard has Ray seemed weird to you lately?" Mikey asked, watching Gerard wander out the back door, waving for Bandit to stay inside with Brian as he snuck out for a smoke. "Weirder than usual?"

"He cancelled movie night last night.” Bob offered, his head still down. This sharing of feelings thing really wasn't panning out the way he'd hoped.

“ Maybe the movie was shit?” Gerard offered, the Way brothers really weren't the most helpful people when it came to this sorta shit.

“ We had Killer Klowns from Outer Space downloaded.” Bob offered.

“ Classic.” Mikey nodded respectfully before turning to look the other way.

"That's uh, not good." Gerard blinked, blinking a few more times at Mikey who was now looking with interest at a broken power socket beside the door. Yeah they were beyond crap at this.

"Maybe he's met someone?" Mikey shrugged, kicking at the panel, stumbling backwards a little as sparks started to spit out of it. “That can make people act pretty weird.”

"But I thought-"

“ What's that supposed to mean?” Gerard replied, his attention sharp and holding on his little brother.   
  
“We're talking about Bob and Ray.” Mikey sighed, rolling his eyes as Gerard lit another fucking cigarette. 

“ It doesn't seem that way.”   
  
“For half a fucking second could we take a moment out of our day to look into life problems that don't involve the Way brothers? I know you've got a list of dramas longer than any sitcom in history but occasionally it would be nice if we could visit the land of ‘considering other fucking people’ for once.” Bob snapped, causing Mikey and Gerard to startle, watching him with matching wide pathetic look eyes.

"I love you idiots but you really need to look over your damn priorities.” Bob finished, pushing past the two of them to go back inside and do his damn job, knowing full well Ray's continued absence in the space would niggle at him until he tipped someone off the top of the light mountings 'by mistake'. Hopefully it wouldn't be Brian, he really didn't need finding a new job to be added to his list of things to fix the fuck up. It was getting dangerously long already.

"Well that was dealt with well.” Gerard sighed, shaking his head as he scrunched his cigarette packet into his jacket pocket.

“ You should really quit those at some point soon, you can't hide them from B forever.” Mikey muttered, chewing at the edge of a fingernail as he turned around to head back after Bob, truth be told they were being assholes.   
  
“Not now.” Gerard sighed, sensing as the hairs literally stood up on the back of Mikey's neck, watching as the kid spun so fast Gerard was sort of surprised he didn't have his hackles raised.

“ You can't keep on fucking saying that Gee.” Mikey growled, fingers bunching into spindly fists, remaining useless and shakey at his sides.

“ I've said it twice in twenty four hours, that's not a crime Mikes.” Gee replied, watching his brother carefully. It was rare for them to end up in a situation like this but not entirely unheard of, as long as he was careful they would both walk away from this without any metaphoric or actual scars.

“ It is when you won't talk to me, what the hell is going on with you? What happened last night?” Mikey snapped, eyes wide and bright in the stinging winters breeze.

Gerard shrugged, holding his hands up in front of him “ The meeting didn’t go so well.”

“ Yeah well I sort of guessed that by your early appearance in the parking lot, why didn’t you call me?” The pitch of his brothers voice shifted, his stance moving towards the more defensive side of things.

“ I’m fine.” Gerard added, eyes moving across his brothers face, they hadn't fought like this in months, Mikey had the occasional freak out certainly and Gerard had the more occasional depressive spiraling streak but even so this felt very, well, off.

  
“Are you? You were pale and a little wild eyed when you came upstairs.” Mikey hissed, jamming his hands into his hoody pocket.

  
“It was cold out, nothing more.” There was a strain in Gerard’s voice that mirrored Mikey’s, for all the passion of his little brothers anger Gerard was tired, exhausted of the constant worrying both from his friends and family. It hadn't been easy on any of them, watching him fall so close to never coming back, what Mikey still didn't seem to understand however was that reminding him of just how close he came didn't make it any easier, for either side.

  
“So you didn’t…”

  
“Fuck, no, I’ve had worse days since I got sober Mikey, I’m not just going to turn back to it because of one bad meeting.” Gerard replied, turning away from his little brother for a moment, setting his jaw as he waited for the next line of retorts. This really was getting way too fucking out of hand.

  
“Maybe you should call your sponsor?” Mikey offered, moving a little to try and catch his brothers eye.

“ Frank and I talked, he helped me clear my head out, its fine.” Gerard replied, waving Mikey away, digging through his pockets for one last magical fucking cigarette.

  
“Frank isn’t your sponsor.” Mikey cried, waving his hands around uselessly.

  
“ No. but he’s my friend and sometimes that’s enough. Speaking of friends, shouldn't you be meeting the particular topic of our conversation right now? Or are you going to skip out on him because he 'isn't my sponsor'? Treating people like garbage because things change isn't a good enough reason Mikey, not even for you. I expected better.” Gerard replied, setting Mikey with a cold look before moving past him to find Bandit.    
_

Coupon crazed Tuesdays at the stop and shop means middle aged women attacking each other over cut price toilet rolls and people buying more sausages than could possibly be eaten in the span of an entire year, even if you have a family of fucking fifteen to feed. Safe to say Frank hated Tuesdays. Usually these early week days from hell were brightened a little by a mid-morning smoke and coffee break with Mikey, who would sit on the milk crate stacks out the front of the store with him and make bitchy remarks about his customers as they struggled with their trains of trolleys filled with a lifetimes worth of ketchup and cake mix towards their family friendly sedans.

 “ Is that an entire family sized apple pie?” Vicky asked, raising an eyebrow as Frank slunk behind one of the shelves, shovelling more pie into his mouth. It was way too early in the morning to be mocked by Vicky-bloody-T.   
  
“Maybe.” he grumbled pulling the pie a little closer to his chest, the people who worked at the stop and shop were vultures, for all he knew she was trying to poach some of his - it's too early in the morning for this shit - pie from him. If so she could fuck off, judgement or no judgement this discount piece of delicious microwaved bliss was all his.

“ This is going to be bad when your blood sugar drops.” She sighed, frowning as Spencer rolled around the corner, literally, someone (a child) had forgotten (taken their eyes off of) a scooter yesterday and Spencer had claimed (stolen) it for his own, thus allowing the perfectly styled fuckwit to make smooth as hell entrances and exits from his life ruining experiences in a style so close to Pete-fucking-Wentz it would have been impressive, if it wasn’t actually entirely horrifying.   
  
“Clean up in Isle Foooooooooour, tag you're it pie boy, enjoy the snow dayyyyyyyy~” The grinning Cheshire cat of a human chuckled, rolling his way right back out of the entirely pitiful situation that seemed to exist as Franks day to day life.

So yeah, this Tuesday wasn’t going to be that kind on him it seemed, or at least it hadn’t started out that way, considering Frank had spent the last hour and a half cleaning up a flour landslide in the baking aisle that made him look like he was attempting to celebrate a rather cut cost Christmas in July, in well, September.

“ I think you’re doing it wrong.” Mikey called, leaning his spindly behind against the closest clean surface, there was no way in hell he was going to allow himself to be coated in flour dust. Frank had the stuff so caked in his hair Mikey was pretty sure he was going to actually turn into a scone if he wasn’t careful.

“ Oh do please advise me in the fine art that is cleaning up after fuckwits who don’t know how to put things back on shelves, I am sure you are oh so very qualified to give me all the tricks of the trade.” Frank drawled, scowling up at his friend as he attempted to blow some of his floured hair out of his face and just ended up in a round of sneezing fits.

Mikey rolled his eyes, flipping him the bird before handing him his coffee as he side stepped the mess to move past him, glowering at the world behind an entirely too girly pair of sunglasses, not that Frank could talk, he had stolen his from Jamia a while back. Boy glasses didn’t hide your face from the sun in the same way girls ones did.

"I've gotta say MikeyWay, your conversational skills only improve as the years wind ever onwards, the joy of your company is as ever so utterly stimulating.” Frank supplied, kicking a couple of ‘keep out’ signs around the mess as he scouted out his managers current location, plotting the best escape route for the front doors. Mikey wasn’t very good at this side of things, at least not when a group was involved.

“ So I think Pete’s on the phone to Patrick and boring Geoff is still in his office so the coast should be clear to-“   
  
“Stay away from my brother,” Mikey replied, cutting Frank off mid-sentence in an oddly stony but carefully quiet tone, the expression on his face was unreadable, stupid girl glasses or no.

“ What?" Frank blinked, turning a little too quickly, almost losing his footing as he attempted to get out of authoritarian line of site while still not crowding his rather cagey friend.

"Stop trying to court Gerard or whatever the hell you do to your newest conquest.” Mikey continued with what seemed to be a rehearsed but somewhat poorly executed word vomit, Frank had seen Mikey try and do this kind of thing before, though never to him, on a personal level it was no less painful or awkward.

"Well that was unexpected.” Frank wheezed, blinking through another cloud of flour.

Mikey pushed his glasses up, setting Frank with a mildly confused but rather forceful glare, “Was it really?"

"Yeah dude, pretty fucking damn, I mean I know you were weird last night, but like shit, I didn't know what that was about.” Frank supplied, scratching the back of his neck as he tried to figure out how to navigate the two of them out of this situation with the least possible collateral damage.

“ I thought I could help, so I did, well I tried, we all seemed fine afterwards, I just figured it’d be better if you guys stayed with B, I didn’t want her to get worried and she doesn’t know me as well.” Frank offered, doubting Mikey would bother listening to his ‘excuses’.

"Stop trying to like woo him with your weird prefect hair and girlish forever young face, he's busy and not interested and busy.” Mikey snapped, bristling beneath his perfect hair and well pressed coat. He’d come up with a good argument in the car, a list of reasons why he was right and Frank was obviously going to fuck things up, as per usual of course their arguments never really went according to plan.

"Dude are you jealous?” Frank laughed, cursing himself a little as he watched Mikey’s jaw set, wishing he was a little better at keeping his damn cool. Pissed Mikey was by far the scariest kind of Mikey and it was way too early in the morning to have to deal with that right now.

"What the fuck he's my brother how does that even work?”

“ You didn’t like that someone else was able to help him, that someone else could talk him down from whatever was going on in that amazing but cluttered as fuck head of his. That’s why you’re pissed and firing off stupid accusations about my wanting to steal your brothers fucking virtue or whatever the hell it is you think I’ll do. Which news flash dude, was not the case, I like your brother, sure but that’s it.”

"Yeah I know, you /like/ my brother, that's the point, you need to stop /liking/ my brother, he's a parent for Christ's sake, you don't even entirely own your car yet.” Mikey replied, his stupid glasses wobbling dangerously on top of his head somehow managing to piss Frank off even more.

"Hey I stopped his kid from being abducted, I am responsible.” Frank exclaimed, waving his arms around in a way that was totally meant to make him not look crazy but instead make his point more valid and pointed with pointedness. Frank needed coffee and a cigarette and Mikey to stop being neurotic, for the love of God.

"You thought of the best place to sleep, that's not exactly stellar parenting, Frank.” Mikey replied, doing that annoying fucking head wiggle thing he did when he knew he was right and Frank took too long to form a reply because yes okay Mikey was totally right. Asshole.

"Seriously though, you don't think I'm good enough for your brother?” Frank hissed, lowering his tone in favour of full out yelling at the fuckwit in front of him, he was in enough trouble with the management as it was, having a domestic with his best friend in the feminine hygiene aisle wasn’t likely to win him employee of the month.

"I don't think he needs any more distractions in his life right now, you saw how he was last night. This comic is his big chance, he's been working towards this since we were both kids.”

"Dude I know" Frank sighed, shoulder checking to make sure there wasn't a manager lurking in the background.

"No, you don't 'know'. You've seen him after a bad meeting, that's not knowing him Frank! That's giving someone a pep talk and hoping to God it works." Mikey hissed, shocking Frank with the sheer harshness to the edge of his tone, he'd seen Mikey be protective of people before but this was some fucking next level shit that Frank was really not down with.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Mikes.” He sighed, scratching the back of his neck, knowing there was pretty much no way he was going to win this argument without outside help of the most likely Alicia Way persuasion.

"Anytime"

Frank blinked, shaking his head a little as he placed the cup down beside Mikey.

"I think you gave me Gerard’s coffee, you know I don't take sugar or syrup, he takes both, that fuckers way too sweet to be my usual." Frank replied, turning his back on the younger Way.

"Though I suppose I don't know him well enough to know that either." Frank gritted out, shaking his head a little before he rounded the corner, heading for the stock rooms. He could not fucking deal with humans today.

Mikey blinked, taking a sip of the coffee, cursing under his breath as he looked at the cup, he'd seen Gerard earlier, dropping him off a coffee and some breakfast for the two of them, he must have left the wrong one behind.

Back at Brian's Ray was quietly drinking his unsweetened frank coffee, sitting up in the lighting rigs watching Bob explain the finer details of light switch boards to Bandit as Gerard waved his arms around, trying to convince Brian to do some kind of big mural new paint job thing. It was weird, sitting up there, watching life move along like usual, for a few moments he could pretend that he could call down to Bob and get a wave and smile and it'd be fine.

__

By the time Bob got home, Ray had manage to stress clean the entire apartment as well as reorganise the small recording studio they'd set up downstairs and do all of their washing, including stripping the sheets off both of their beds. It wasn't really needed considering how rarely they used Ray's bed anymore, they'd gotten into the habit of falling asleep on Bob's bed watching movies a few years before and had just sort of stayed that way. That probably should have been slightly more of a sign of what was happening, at least what Bob thought was happening.

“ You know having Patrick here doesn't mean we need to have this place looking and smelling like a hospital right?” Bob sighed as he caught Ray mid bench wipe down, causing the fluffy haired man to jump a little.

“ Yeah, hey, well, that's, I thought that was next month.” Ray finished blinking a little as he attempted to catch up with his brain.

“ It was next month last month, now it's  _the_  month, if it's an issue I can try and organise something else, I don't want to make you uncomfortable.” Bob replied, leaving a neat pile of cables on the table for Ray before heading out towards his room.   
  
“They get here on Wednesday, so try and decide before that alright?” Bob's door slid shut with a quiet click, echoing around the already too silent house .

It was weird, missing someone you saw everyday, missing things you didn't know you liked, things that just became part of life without you noticing. Ray wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed to float through the past few years without seeing what was going on. It was easy he supposed, happy and easy and Bob just made sense being where he was, doing what he did. They'd always been close, they just got closer. Ray just wasn't entirely sure how close he was willing to be, knowingly at least anyway.   
  
Bob started into the space of his room, dropping several six packs onto the space where Ray usually sat to listen to him bitch about the idiots he'd met during the day, laughing at his usual cynicism, finding good points to days where Bob was pretty sure there wasn't a possibility of even the emergence of a little light. The room stayed empty, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and Ray caught up and washed out by cleaning supplies and distance. The kitchen was ten steps away in reality, right now it felt like there was an entire ocean between them.

“ It was inevitable, you're a cranky old bastard. What did you expect?” Bob said to no one in particular sitting down on his bed, staring at his shoes. Fuck he hoped Patrick ended up coming to stay, he really wasn't sure how much longer he could take the restless silence that was threatening to smother him alive.

Ray leant against the wall, listening to Bob move around his space, catching moments of broken conversation, fingers itching to turn the damn handle, to overcome whatever idiotic fear had slithered out of the corners of his mind and taken away his ability to do this anymore. The sound of a television filtered through the door within minutes and Ray moved to sit, listening to Bob channel surf, smiling quietly at his grumpy commentary as he pretended not to love everything on the lifestyle channels. How things went from simple to impossible in such a short period of time was beyond Ray, then again he supposed that was part of the problem, what did you do when you needed to talk to your best friend about being in love with someone when they were the same damn person? Even worse when that love didn't make sense itself. How did you love someone without knowing it? Wasn't it weird to just start being life partners with someone without actually talking about it? How had Bob managed to be so damn calm and cool about things? Ray let his head fall back, breathing through whatever his heart was deciding to do right now, beating so fucking loud it seemed to echo into his brain.   
  
___

Between the cover art designs Gabriel was asking for and the final press read-overs, Gerard was too busy to breath for near on a week, only leaving the house when Mikey or Ray were too busy to stop by and drop off supplies. Which was actually only twice; once at 4am when he really really needed coffee and Bandit had had a nightmare and decided that driving to the old lake near Gerard’s mothers house would apparently fix everything. They'd sat together drinking their milk and coffee, watching the sun come up, trying to create weird new names for all of the colors they saw. Bandit fell asleep in Gerard’s lap and he had to buy himself more coffee on the way home to stop himself from curling up in the back seat with her for a nap. The second time had been at a more reasonable hour but with time crushing in on him Gerard decided to take the risk and starbucks it, thanking the heavens above when the bored hipster chick was on counter duty instead of flippy haired guy. Sometimes the universe threw him a break, maybe that could become a trend or something, that'd be really nice.

Because of all of these wonderful time restrictions Gerard misses Frank on his two evenings and one day off, meaning that matching their schedules becomes pretty much impossible. Luck have it however Brian pipes up with a good idea (which is any idea Brian has because he is the king of business and logic) that Gerard should perhaps meet the rest of the band, doing so would be made pretty easy by going to one of their practices. With two designs finalised Gerard made his way towards the practice space, feeling a little jumpy as he listened to Mikey remind him that he wasn't a total loser weirdo.

"You used to be in bands when you were at college, you do work for bands all the time.” Mikey sighed as Gerard continued to chew his way through what remained of his finger nails.

"Yes but I don't meet them very often, it's usually just Brian and one of his bored assistants.” Gerard blinked, pausing in his cuticle destruction to ponder this new development.

"You mean Lambert?” Mikey asked, frowning behind his stupid girl glasses as he waited for the moron in the SUV before him to take the fucking turn, fuck he hated not being allowed to swear in the car anymore. All of this concealed road rage was going to give him an ulcer he could feel it.

"Doesn't he have a couple?” Gerard frowned, fumbling for his phone checking the address for the 12th time that morning.

"Not that I know of.” Mikey supplied, rolling his eyes as his brother continued to fidget, still pretty pissed off he hadn't managed to convince Gerard to let him come along.

"But there was the guy with black hair and then the guy with curly blonde hair."

"Same dude."

"But how, is he a metamorphogus?" Gerard baulked, tugging at his own hair, considering how he would look with curls. Like an idiot probably.

"No he just uses peroxide now and then. I hate to say it, Brother, but not everything is harry Potter related, which I know you are in no way unfamiliar with, remember your white pixie cut stage?" Mikey chuckled, remember the first time Gerard had attempted to get his hair white and had instead gone fluorescent orange.

Gerard just looked at him as if he had deeply offended him (which he had, Harry Potter was important dammit) and moved to scratching at the paint on his nails.

"You'll be perfect Daddy, plus you are going to have a play date with Frank, it'll be lots of fun!” Bandit chirped bouncing in her seat in the back of the car.

"It's not a play date sweet heart, this is for business, Frank and I are working together.” Gerard explained, glaring at Mikey as he noted the epic roll of his eyes.

"Oh, but you're friends aren't you daddy?” Bandit asked, a note of confusion in her tone.

Gerard "I uh-well"

"We're all friends B, now tell me, are you excited to come with Uncle Mikey to look at ponies?" Mikey asked, driving into the parking lot of Franks studio, still shaking his head at his entirely useless brother, at least he knew Gerard would be way too awkward to manage any sort of flirting with Frank, if only it was the same both ways.

__

It’s been a while since Gerard was in a studio space that wasn’t covered in paint. Though this studio space seemed to be more of a shed with no identifiable way to get in or out. Gerard blinked for a moment, pushing his sunglasses up onto his head as he squinted against the late afternoon sunshine, fumbling with his phone as he attempted to find the directions Frank had sent him.

//Come round the back, use the blue door//

The door wasn’t blue, it was red and it was at the side not really the back, the back was mostly filled with garbage cans and what looked like the very sorry looking remains of an old drum kit and an abandoned fire pit.

To make matters even more enjoyable the door was locked and seemed to have been used semi recently by some drunkard as a favoured place for urination, then again that was Jersey charm for you now wasn’t it.

“ Dude shouldn’t he be here by now?” Ben asked frowning a little as he watched Frank fiddle with the tuning on his guitar for the millionth time that afternoon, the kid really needed to get some new strings if the damn thing was losing it’s tuning that fast.

“ He’s an artist they’re never on time.” Frank shrugged, swatting at James as he tried to steal his cigarettes. Stingy asshole.

“ W hat’s your excuse then Iero?” Dewee’s chuckled, flicking Frank in the back of the head as he wandered past, waving around Franks ‘liberated’ packet of smokes as he headed towards the exit. Grinning at the rude hand gestures Frank threw his way, head still down over his beloved fucking instrument.

James was having a pretty alright day, his rent check hadn't bounced, Frank had found time for an entire studio day and he now had what looked to be most of a packet of smokes, shit was decidedly looking up. The guy hanging around outside the old back door looking like an awkward vampire raven thing didn't seem to be having as much luck.

“ You look lost” James called, because he was nice like that, plus the guy really didn't look like he belonged in direct sunlight for too long, the last thing they needed was to have to deal with a dead body out the back.

“ That’s rather fitting, considering I am.” Gerard called, squinting at Dewee's, wandering in his general direction, he looked like a musician, hungover, unwashed, shitty cigarettes in hand, then again he could be about to break into the place, you never could tell in Jersey.

“ Now considering the shirt and tie I’d say you were selling something but the distressed look on your face suggests you're possibly the entirely late artist we aren't paying, if the paint on your shoes is anything to go by.” Dewee's called, wiggling his eyebrows as he felt all Sherlock Holmesie and shit.

Gerard paused, looking down at his shoes. He'd meant to change into dress shoes but must have forgotten, though how he had managed to change pants without switching shoes was sort of beyond him.

“ We don't have a dress code, no need to bust a brain cell on it man, though you're going to have to cough up a cancer stick in payment for entry, house rules n shit.” Dewee's shrugged, giving Gerard his most winning smile.   
  
“What if I smoke menthols?” Gerard offered, handing over the required smoke as James stepped aside to let him in, blinking a little in an attempt to get his eyes to adjust to the sudden light shift.   
  
“When you're as poor as I am kid, you aint got time to be picky.” James chuckled, bouncing past Gerard lighting his newly acquired cigarette with Ben's lighter. God he loved borrowing things from his friends.   
  
“Go straight down, turn the corner, look for the tiny excuse for a human being trying to get his guitar in tune, you'll be fine!” Dewee's called over his shoulder, disappearing into a room off to the side of the corridor, laughing loudly as the door snapped shut, throwing the corridor into silence.

Gerard was now alone, in a dark dingy corridor, it hadn't seemed threatening with the guy, who's name he realised he hadn't actually caught was talking to him and leading the way, now it sort of looked like a creepy murder corridor, not good, at all.

Frank groaned kicking the old coke machine in an attempt to get it to dispense a can of soda. This particular machine had a habit of keeping soda's from poor musicians only to dump out 15 at once at random intervals. Frank was sort of incredibly sick of being surrounded by broken shit.

“ You lying son of a bitch, you promise sweet sweet caffeine and what do you deliver instead?” “Lies and desolation?” Gerard offered, smiling a little as he heard a laugh rumble its way out of Franks chest, turning the corner to a rather enjoyable site of Frank's pink face, slightly distorted by the occasional plume of smoke.

Frank grinned, leaning against the machine to give Gerard a careful once over, understanding somewhat why Mikey had kept Gerard away from him for so long, not that that would stop him now, asshole. “Couldn’t have said it better myself man, glad you could make it.”

Ben rolled his eyes, hip checking Frank as he came up behind him, totally ruining the smooth move, causing Frank to sort of flail and fall past Gerard, who figured out several moments too late that he should have tried to catch him or at the very least break his fall with something.

“ Hey I'm Be-” Ben grinned, laughing for a moment before he dragged Gerard into a bone crushing hug, gaining one hell of a stink eye from a grumbling Frank on the floor.

"Shit dude, you didn't tell us Gerard Way was doing the posters, how the hell are you man?" Ben chuckled patting Gerard on the back as he drew back, flipping Frank off before he leant down to help him up, not that up was exactly that far in the first place.

Gerard blinked, smoothing a hand through his hair, sending it into a pretty ridiculous mess, hunching in on himself as he shrugged a little, mumbling something about comics and band art and kids and not having a wife. Frank sort of vagued out on the details because Gerard was being really fucking cute and talking to his shoes again.

"Have you heard this guy sing?" Ben asked, laughing a little as he patted Gerard on the back, entirely used to the dudes particular brand of bashful crazy.

"What, even Ben has heard you sing? COME ON!" Frank barked, leading Gerard towards their particular practice room, waving and nodding to several fellow Jersey band kids, allowing Gerard to just sort of twitch and blink at each encounter, the poor guy really didn't seem to get out enough, if human interaction made him this disconcerted.

"Well it was a long time ago." Gerard shrugged, fiddling with his tie for a moment as they entered the studio, gaining a few more 'fuck me look who it is's' from the other members of the band. Apparently half of Jersey knew this guy.

"Too long." Frank grinned, moving away to grab the folder he'd picked up from Brian's earlier in the week.

Gerard sighed, smiling quietly as Ben brought some of the others over to chat to him, "Not long enough." he mumbled under his breath, nodding with forced enthusiasm as Otter waved his sticks at him, throwing around stories of the glorious old days.

“ We should get you to sample on something, I think your voice would work really fucking well with Frank's, oi Iero, come here, come sing a few bars of something.” Ben called, flipping Dewee's off as he entered the room, frowning a little as he watched the scene unfolding before him, awkward artist dude seemed a little too popular for his own good.

"I came here for art, not music, well I mean I was going to listen to you play a little because it would help with art stuff, but you know, not singing me myself, I don't know any of your songs well enough anyway." Gerard sighed, wishing he'd taken up Mikey's offer to come along for moral support, he really wasn't up to do this sort of thing right now, or really ever again actually, what the hell had he been thinking?

"Yeah ‘cause we don't know covers or anything." Ben laughed, strumming out a rather familiar chord progression as Otter across the room let out a chuckle, settling behind his drum kit.

"I haven't sung to anyone but my daughter or my paint brushes in years." Gerard called, shaking his head a little, trying to ignore the rather pleading look in Frank’s eyes, stupid pretty sweet talking asshole.

"It'll make a nice change then." Frank grinned, sidling up with his guitar, knocking Gerard gently as he offered him a smile that was all sunshine and fucking hopes and dreams. Musicians were actually the fucking worst, he shouldn't be allowed near them, ever.

"You really going to turn down some good old Jersey punk Gee? I can feel Mikey cringing at the pain of such a horribly missed opportunity and he doesn't even know why.” Frank grinned, striking a riff out on his guitar, watching as it went straight into Gerard's bones. The guy seemed to almost hum with anticipation, how had he not seen this side of him before?

The music swelled a little and Gerard felt a smile tug at his lips, something in his gut turn, not in a bad way, a familiar niggle, one he'd forgotten he could feel.

"I'm going to be terrible." Gerard sighed, hearing the deliciously rough first few riffs of Astro Zombies working their way under his skin, fucking assholes knew him too well.

"Good cause I suck at this one" Frank chuckled, plugging in his guitar as Ben tossed Gerard a microphone.

Things sort of shift in a strange way from the moment Gerard first starts to sing, habit takes over fear and he's mixed in with the music before he can really remember why he ran away from it for so long. There are reasons of course, really fucking good reasons, but right now he's safe, in a small space with old names, new faces and nothing but cigarettes and flat cola drinks in site. He's not on stage over his head, too drunk to fucking function or stuck in a shitty back room doing lines with someone he knows but doesn't entirely recognise anymore. Frank lets out a bark of laughter and watches him, really fucking looks and Gerard laughs in reply, wiggling his hips a little, pulling out some particularly nerdy but brilliantly ridiculous dance moves to make him laugh again.

His voice is good, a little gravely from under use sure, but Frank can hear the natural talent fucking dripping from every note. It wasn't just his voice that made Franks guts turn to ice and fucking fire all in one. It was the way he moved, the look on his face, the fucking everything. Gerard was electric, running a hand through his hair as he turned to smirk at Frank as the rough sound rolled through the room around them. What the fucking fuck. There's heat and weight and fucking delicious tension in the air but it's all in good fun and as the music crashes towards its end Gerard lets it all go, just for a moment and Frank forgets to breath. Whatever happens next this can't be the last time he sees him like this, it just can't.

"Dude, that was  _amazing_.” Frank cried, winking at Ben as he nodded to Gee giving him a thumbs up, taking the final drafts over to show a couple of the other guys as Frank waved his packet of smokes around.

"It was alright." Gerard sighed, unable to break the smile from his face, making a grab for the cigarettes as Frank skilfully drew them back just in time.

Frank laughed, patting Danny on the shoulder before he pushed him out of the damn way.

"Well that was extraordinary; I am utterly offended that you have kept such talents from me for so long." Frank grumbled, lighting his own cigarette before blowing smoke in Gerard's general direction as he dragged the guy down to sit beside him.

"I've know you for like a month." Gerard frowned, watching Frank huff in lung fulls of air in between drags, getting sort of distracted by the patchwork of ink scattered across his skin, the fingers wrapped around his cigarette that had so skilfully played guitar just minutes before.

"That’s not the point." Frank giggled, watching Gerard sort of zone out slowly.

"Shut up and give me a cigarette" Gerard explained a little slower than entirely intended, tilting his head a little to read what seemed to be a new set of lettering across Franks fingers.

__

 “ So I sung today, with real people who were in a band.”

Lyn blinked for a moment, frowning at the little version of Gerard that appeared before her on her phone, Iphones could be an asshole at times, but fuck she thanked God for face times at moments like these.   
  
“As in, sung sung, music, with people, Gee, that's...” Lyn paused, attempting a smile that got sort of tangled on the way out.   
  
“It was fine actually, Frank plays with Ben and Otter in Pencey Prep, so I ran into them at the studio and they got me to sing a Misfits cover, nothing bad, just, you know, fun.” Gerard shrugged, glancing down at the piece of paper he'd been covering in sketches for the past half hour as they'd talked, he was sort of rubbish at face time if he didn't have something else to concentrate on.

 “ That's good, I've always thought it was a waste that you gave up on it all completely. You're too good to save your tunes for your shower head, especially considering how little time you spend in your shower anyway.” Lindsay laughed, sticking her tongue out at Gerard as he pretended to look offended, breaking out into his usual dorky giggling wheeze.   
  
“One day that insults going to get old.” Gerard sighed, frowning for a moment before he disappeared off screen to reclaim a pencil from under his desk.   
  
“News flash kid YOU ARE ALREADY OLD.” Lyn called, laughing as Gerard hit his head on his desk, cursing quietly before coming back into view, hair wild, laughter in the corner of his eyes.   
  
“You'll wake our damn kid up if you're not careful.” Gee grumbled, good nature dripping from every syllable, it was going to be wonderful having her back for a while, he didn't like to admit how much he relied on her, or any of his friends for that matter, but the hole that had opened since she'd been on tour was growing faster than he would have liked.

 “ Her room is on the other side of the apartment, stress less old man.” Lyn teased, giggling a little as Kitty wandered past, makeup smeared across her face, hair sticking up at all angels.   
  
“Hi GEEEE!” She yelled while Lyn spun her phone around, catching a dizzying wonky glimpse of her band mate moving through the tour bus, in her pj's.   
  
“Stylin’ as usual I see Kitty.” Gerard smiled, thanking the world quietly for small moments like these, there was a long time when he was sure he'd never experience them again, his twenties hadn't been a kind time, not for anyone involved.

 “ Mikes seems to be a little worried about you at the moment, does he know about this impromptu musical performance today?” Lyn asked, watching Gerard duck back behind his hair, the Way brothers in an argument was so far beyond not being a good sign, sometimes Lyn really had to wonder if Gerard noticed the effects he'd had on his brother. He loved him with everything he had certainly, but after the grandmothers death Gee sort of lost perspective on a lot of things, in some ways he never entirely got them back.   
  
“I may have left certain details out of our earlier conversations about today, I don't think he'd really handle hearing about it, not at the moment, he's not huge on my spending time with Frank, which while understandable to a point is verging a little too close to over protective for my liking.” Gerard replied, leaning over to pop open the studio window, turning awkwardly until his feet rested on the rusty grate of his useless fire escape.

“  Licia’s worried about him, I know Frank isn't Bert, but you can see how Mikey's brain could put two and two together can't you?” Lyn offered, watching Gerard's face twitch through several different emotions before settling on tired disappointment.

 “ Bert was a drug addict who thought it would be fun to drag me down a long and horrific road of hospital visits and mildly illegal activities when I was an idiotic twenty year old, Frank is a vegetarian animal lover who wears hats made by our daughter and takes it upon himself to talk me out of anxiety attacks because it seems like the right thing to do. I know they're both in the music scene but to be honest that's really the only correlation I can see.” Gerard replied fiddling with his lighter.

 “ I'm not saying it's fair, I'm just pointing out what you probably don't want to look at.” Lyn shrugged, pulling a blanket over her shoulders as she wandered towards the front of the bus, an unlit cigarette dangling dangerously from the corner of her lips.   
  
“That could happen with anyone in the music scene though, does that mean I can't ever date a musician again? Cause if that's the case the pickings in Jersey are pretty slim considering every man and his cousin is in a band.”  
  
“Don't date someones cousin.” Lyn chuckled, lighting her cigarette with a practiced grace Gerard knew he would never hold.   
  
“Everyone is someones cousin.” He shrugged resting his phone in his lap as he looked out into the inky cold black evening, while heights had never entirely been his thing it was nice living up high, being closer to the sky like this was sort of lovely.   
  
“Some people have parents that don't have siblings on either side.” Lyn replied, leaning her head against the doorway of the bus, looking up at the stars, too tired to remember which was which, happy knowing they were there regardless of who gave them names.   
  
“So no musicians and only people who come from double single child parented families? How will I chose from my over flowing pool of suitors?” Gerard asked quietly, watching for shapes in the ribbons of smoke that wound their way out his window, breaking apart in the careful winter wind biting at his cheeks.   
  
“Remember we've got the same stars hey kid? We're looking at the same sky, so we're not so far away.” Lindsay smiled, watching a shadowed smile work it's way across Gerard's face.   
  
Close but still so damn far away, Gerard could still remember those words down the telephone line as he lay in a field behind some nameless stadium, music echoing across the waste lands of middle america, alcohol making him feel slow and heavy, speed curling through his veins, cutting at his nerves in all the wrong ways. “Love you.” He murmured, taking in another lung full of air, eyes locked on the tiny pin pricks of light above him.   
  
“You too, go to sleep.” Lyn hummed, watching as Gerard nodded non committally, fumbling with the end call button, attention too far away to map.    
  
__

By the time Frank gets home he's got a death rattle in his chest and a tissue stuffed up his nose to try and stem the never ending flow of snot that seems to have turned his face into the Niagara falls of sickness.

“ I am so not taking you to the hospital tonight Iero, get your ass onto the couch wrapped in a blanket and don't even think about smoking.” Jamia growled, watching Frank slouch against their coat rack as he unwound several scarves tangled around his throat.   
  
Frank sighed, frowning across the room where his grumpy but well meaning roommate sat. Her hair was a mess, she'd been working from home all day, the office was hell at the moment, redundancies were going off like bombs left right and centre. Raising an eyebrow above her reading glasses Jamia pointed to the couch, shutting her laptop screen as she moved towards the kitchen, putting on the kettle as she began to pull tupperware containers out of the fridge. Frank’s mother had started making vegetable soup in bulk a few years ago, dropping pots of it off every few months to save Jamia the job of making it on the monthly basis that Franks bouts of killer illness popped up.   
  
“Working fifteen jobs and being in ten bands really isn't working out for you kid.” She called, sticking her head out of the kitchen to watch Frank creeping towards the window, packet of cigarettes in hand, guilt riddling his every feature.   
  
“You know I could kill you with little more than a fork and no one would blame or convict me for it Iero, sit down, get warm and put the nicotine down before I do something only you and your band members will regret.”

Frank loved Jamia, even when she was pissed off because she hated her job or yelling at him for smoking. Considering she herself was a pack a day smoker back in her dirty punk days Frank tended to fight back on her no smoking rules, today however he'd let it slide. Especially since they hadn't fixed the hole in the wall she'd made the last time she'd pinned his smokes to the wall with the bottle opener. He said he put it down to a lucky shot, but Frank wasn't really ready for a rematch.  
  
“So did the band love Gerard as much as you do? Or did you decide not to be nice and kept him all for yourself? You never were very good at sharing, Frankie.” Jamia grinned, pushing Frank over a little as she settled down onto the couch, handing Frank a cup of lemon tea, cradling her own between her hands, breathing in with a long happy sigh.   
  
“They actually already knew him.” Frank replied, sounding annoyingly nasal as he pressed his face closer to the cup. Coffee would have been a hell of a lot nicer right now, but it was Jamia's house and Jamia's rules, especially since she inevitably ended up taking him to the emergency room once every couple of months.   
  
“It's Jersey so I can't say I'm surprised, how? Had he done art for one of the other guys hundreds of bands? You guys really need to sign onto a label so you can gain some goddamn focus.”   
  
“Well it'd help if there was a decent local label left in Jersey.” Frank sniffed, taking a careful sip of his still too hot beverage. “He used to sing in a band, not sure which, but we uh, we got him to do a cover with us and fuck Jam, the guys voice.”   
  
Jamia watched Frank carefully, the kid’d had puppy eyes for Gerard since they'd first met, but this, this was something more than a little crush, a cute artist guy who had musical ability, it sounded both promising and dangerous. Frank hadn't really managed a decent relationship with anyone since the last time Lauren has disappeared more than a year ago and while Gerard sounded nice, the guy had a kid and some kind of secret rock star past, drama wasn't something Frank needed anymore of, ever.

“ Yeah well we've talked about this before, the way things are going I might end up having enough time to run that pipe dream of ours, though if you end up getting death plague before I so much as get a decent space I'm going to be pretty pissed kid.” Jamia chuckled; starting up on her usual conversational rants about office drama's that Frank enjoyed more than he generally let on. It was nice, having that sense of boring normalcy to come home to after the shit storm of a day he'd had. Sure it wasn't all bad, wasn't that bad at all really but the roller coaster that was his so called life tended to tire him out at the best of times.   
  
__

Four days, three hours and 15 minutes pass since  the studio meeting, and Franks been umming and ahhing at Brian about appropriate times to call Gerard back for two (actually three) of those days. Each time he gave the same response “I don't care, not my drama, deal with it like a man, or woman, or whatever deals with this shit like a normal functioning human that isn't near me.” Each time Frank ignored him.

  
“You're not dating, it doesn't matter, just send him a fucking text or an email or some shit, I don't know, send him an ugly picture of yourself, isn't that all the rage with the infantile population these days?” Brian grumbled, nodding to Lambert as he slid a sandwich across the bar.

“ It's called a selfie old man, plus that's really only usually on snapchat and Frank would first have to contact Gerard to ask him for his snapchat name.” Lambert offered before taking a thoughtful bite of his cucumber and cheese sandwich.   
  
“What the fuck is snapchat, what is wrong with you people?” Brian snapped, opening his sandwich carefully, he'd once taken a bite of Bob's by mistake and almost lost his tongue to the biggest piece of chili he'd ever seen in his life, fuck making that mistake again.   
  
“Guys this is meant to be about me and not the yawning gap of epic proportions that is Brian's lacking ability to understand relevant or upcoming social trends, which of course is why he runs an entertainment venue.” Frank giggled, fumbling at his phone as it started blinking at him.   
  
“Fuck.”  
  
“What?” Brian sighed, ready for another round of Frank’s idiotic drama laden whining, the guy really needed his own reality show, at least then they could all make some capital out of his cluster fuck of a life.   
  
“It's Gerard, what the fuck do I do?” Frank squeaked, starting at his phone screen stupidly.

“ Answer it, it's not rocket science dip shit.” Brain growled, snatching at Frank's phone.   
  
“But what do I say?” Frank blinked, watching Lambert dissolve into a glittery pile of well styled giggles.   
  
“Hello, start with hello.” He offered, watching as Brian swiped the answer button, pushing the phone against Franks face. The two of them should really do stand up, the cranky old scene dude and the useless emo, they'd make a fortune.

“ So hey, I'm at work, which is why I am going to miss things today, I forgot about some stuff I had to look over, sorry dude.” Gerard explained, frowning down at a pile of stuff laid out on his editors desk, he could have sworn he had a cup of coffee in here somewhere.   
  
“That's cool, I have work anyway, William has assignments to do and he doesn't like doing them at work anymore because Gabe 'distracts' him, which is just stupid flippy haired talk for them making out in the store room, which you know is cute and shit, but then he gets all pissed off and that dudes temper is gross.” Frank shrugged, watching Brain shake his head, Frank had like 0 game, how he managed to get himself even a shitty on again off again girlfriend was beyond him.   
  
“Wait you're like, at dark horse right now?” Frank grinned, pushing a smoke between his lips as he headed towards the back door, not in the mood to get chewed out for smoking inside again, even if Brian was a total huge dumb hypocrite and smoked in his office all the time.

“ Yep, it's sort of messy here at the moment, they've got a lot of new books debuting so it's a bit of a mad house, in a good creative, all the interns want to murder themselves way, which isn't good, but you know...” Gerard paused, scratching the back of his head as he watched someone run past his desk, this conversation was totally not going how he'd planned it in his head earlier. Then again when did they ever?

“ Oh man I can sense all the cool comic vibes down the phone.” Frank giggled, shivering a little as the wind began to pick up, Brian really needed an outdoor heater for this smoking area, fuck.

  
“Science doesn’t work that way.” Gerard frowned, making a couple of notes on the press release in front of him, he really didn't like this side of comics.

“ Shh let me dream.” Frank sighed, imagining Gerard in his stupid suit, looking over pages of comic layouts, hair all over the place like it always got when he was drawing, fussing over page placements and color options. Fuck he was brilliant.

  
“You know if you promise not to fan girl out too much I could just bring you along some time.” Gee smiled, trying to factor in time to take Frank to the amazing little coffee store he'd found beside this weird underground parking area down the road, they even let you smoke with your coffee out the back.

  
“I could totally dress up like fun ghoul and you could use me as a real life prop when you pitch your new comic to them.” Frank offered, fumbling for his lighter before giving up and lighting his new cigarette from the smoldering embers of his last.

  
“Well that’s a little forward thinking I don’t even have a story line yet.” Gerard murmured, worrying at his bottom lip as he spread the variant cover mock ups out in front of him.

  
“It’ll be great, just like umbrella is.” Frank smiled.

  
Gerard stopped, looking at his phone before realizing Frank couldn't actually see him, “I, you, but how do you...”

  
Frank grinned, biting his lip as he scrambled for an answer “Mikey leant them to me.”

“ Mikey has a bunch of the originals, he got mad at me last time I touched them for heavens sake.” Gerard replied, disbelief clear in his tone, Frank sort of sucked at bullshitting.

  
“So I went out and bought them all.” Frank shrugged, turning only to catch Brain and Lambert's faces pressed against the door frame giggling silently. Perfect.

“ Ah.”

“ I hope that’s not weird.” Frank mumbled, waving furiously at the two men as they began to laugh in earnest, Brian shifting a little to give Frank two thumbs up.

  
“You bought my comics how is that weird?” Gerard huffed out a wheeze of a laugh, side stepping a hassled looking intern as he tried to find his 0.5 pen, he needed to buy like 15 of them, because he always seemed to lose just that fucking one.

Frank attempted to form a response while throwing boxes at Brian. Where Lambert had the good grace to run away at the first can that was lobbed, Schechter appeared to be in for the long haul. Safe to say his reply came more as a muffled huffed cough than any real words.

  
“Hey Mignola Gabe’s looking for you upstairs, yes, yeah, no, I’ll see you next week?” Gerard called, almost dropping his phone as he waved to his friend, fumbling for a moment as he tried to understand Franks rather high pitched squeaking.

  
“Wait are you talking to Mike Mignola?!” Frank cried, totally too amazed to pay attention to Brian falling over himself with silent laughter as he watched Frank do a weird little limpy dance as he literally fucking squeaked down the phone. The guy was reaching an entirely new level of retarded.

  
“Yes…”

  
“Dude, you just, I have a copy of Hellboy sitting next to my bed right now!” Frank laughed, waving at Bob as he pushed past Brian, rolling his eyes as he frowned, putting a hand on Franks head to stop him jumping around so much.

“ A nd you wonder why you have nightmares.” Gerard sighed.

  
“Yeah but you just, you were talking, to Mike fucking Mignola!” Frank grinned; batting at Bob as he tried to get out of his steel fucking grip, the guy was probably the right size to be a human Hellboy actually. Maybe they could paint him up for Halloween this year, fuck that would be cool.   
  
“We work for the same company, it happens from time to time.” Gerard shook his head as Shaun waved pages at him, ducking down behind the divider at his desk as if it would magically make him turn invisible or something.

  
“I don’t know how you handle that.” Frank blinked, sitting down into the chair that Bob stuffed under him, taking the coat and the cup of tea he switched out for Frank's cigarette. Lemon and Chamomile with a hint of honey, not bad.

  
“You’re in the band scene, have you never played a gig with a band that you really admired?” Gerard shrugged, sinking down into his own chair, laying his head down onto the piles upon piles of papers on his desk, this is why he didn't come into the office more often. Too much paper work, too many editors to chase him around.

  
“Not someone world famous.” Frank shrugged, frowning at Bob as he made motions for him to drink the tea. Ray really needed to get his fluffy head out of his weirdly small butt because Bob's heavy handed mothering really didn't suit any of them as much as it suited Toro, at least he knew how to rein it in.

  
“I guess they’re just really normal in person.”

  
“You’re weird.” Frank grinned, stupidly, giggling into his tea a little, listening to Gerard chuckle back down the line.

  
“Well yeah, but that's, it's part of my charm, but anyway back to looking at the final mock ups before printing…” By the time they really get into it Gerard's got editors and print layouts literally breathing down his neck or actually sitting on it when the second set was concerned, as usual the two of them make plans to sit down face to face. As usual that doesn't actually happen.  
___

It isn't deliberate really but Frank bails out due to illness and Gerard then sort of forgets to go and see Frank at the coffee store due to final layout fuck up's and Bandit losing a tooth, the actual falling out wasn't a problem so much as her losing the actual tooth somewhere. The freak out over pissing off the tooth fairy caused enough of a panic that Lindsey had to call Alicia and Bob in for backup. Alicia put together some weird spell thing with candles and essential oils from Ray's bathroom cabinet (hence Bob's involvement) that they managed to convince Bandit would throw the tooth fairy off her scent and would allow a new tooth to grow without any spooky kind of curses. By the time the ensuing drama had worn off Frank had called him eight times and left several stupid rambling phone messages, including one about a mouse he found behind the stop and shop that he had not only named but written a story about.

The stories kind of cute, morbid, but that's Frank and Gerard finds himself doodling little short scenes from it as he zones out during a meeting with his agent. He's still not used to needing someone that organized, there was a time when Brian had sorted it out for him, but things got too big and real publishing houses wanted you to have the right people on paper. The woman he had was fine, she didn't chide him for being useless too often, sent him extra emails and mostly had the rest of the team deal with press stuff. It was just tiring at times, when the paper work and schedules pushed their way in so much that he didn't get real time to draw, didn't feel like he could jot down new ideas or really stop to take a breath. Mikey was usually pretty good at pulling him into line at times like that. He could sense it, like a change in the fucking wind, and would turn up at the office with donuts and coffee and steal him away right under his editors nose. The kid was magic like that. Though the magic seemed spread a little thin right now.

___

“ So Franks a really good cook right?” Lyn asked, moving around a little as if that will get her a better view though the laptop camera she was currently trying to watch her best friend kill his kitchen through. The weirdest part was when he would switch screens to watch cooking videos and it would just be up close Gerard nose for five minutes while he made humming noises and Bandit sung to herself in the background. Fuck she missed home.   
  
“Yeah, so what?” Gerard shrugged, brandishing a wooden spoon at bandit as she squealed and ran away, crying for her men to take to their boats for battle. They were playing kitchen pirates, using Skype so Lindsay could be the captured princess inside the bottle or, well, MacBook. Gerard liked to think of it as a modern interpretation.   
  
“Well that means, don't take this the wrong way, but it's probably not the best idea to try and impress him with your mediocre cooking abilities.” Gerard groaned as several tins of tomato sauce fell out of the cupboard and onto his toes, followed by the rest of the shelf, Ikea cupboards were not made to store that much jam.   
  
“What was that?” Lyn called as Steve popped his head into her bunk to check if she was okay and get a general peak at what was likely to be one Gerard Way setting himself on fire.   
  
“That was the sound of him taking it the wrong way.” Ray called, his fluffy head distorting the screen for a moment as he tried to tilt it to give them a better view.  
  
“Toro?”   
  
“The one and only, well my mum and Dad have the same name, but I don't think anyone calls them Toro, so the most likely one and only.” Ray grinned, waving at the two of them as he stepped back, allowing a much better view of the kitchen or rather, Gerard sitting on the floor covered in cupboard supplies.   
  
“What are you doing over? I thought this was going to be another awkward not date with tweedle awkward and tweedle dorkus.” Lyn laughed, taking a set of screen caps to send to Mikey later, no matter how much the two of them may have been fighting awkward pictures of his brother could always break the kids resolve.   
  
“Offering moral support and excavating the spare room so you have somewhere to sleep next week.” Ray huffed, moving across the frame with both arms full of comic boxes.   
  
“Hiding from Bob.” Lindsay replied watching Ray wince in the background.   
  
“Harsh, but admittedly fair.” Brain called from the living room, smiling at Bandit as she attempted to convince him to put on a Spiderman mask.  
  
  
“Who the hell isn't in your house right now?” Lyn asked, smiling gently as she watched Gerard disappear from view, baking glitter all through his hair.

“ You are the worst pirates ever and for a captured princess you've sure got a mouth on you.” Gerard called, ducking just in time for Bandit and Brian to launch several confetti bombs their way.   
  
“We'll never give up! The princess is ours!” Ray squeaked, looking entirely like a mad man when his head popped back up, hair equally as colorful as Gerard's now, though his added fluffiness and usual cheery demeanor somehow made it even more ridiculous.   
  
“Well, Mikey was meant to come, but he said he was busy or maybe Alicia was, I don't really remember.” Gerard shrugged, frowning at the screen for a moment as he tried to see the tiny picture of himself in the corner of the screen better. That looked like glitter in his hair again; it had taken long enough the first time to get out.   
  
“Licia is spamming me with photo's of the new socks she just bought and her high scores on call of duty, I don't think that's it hun. Whats going on? Stop glaring at the camera it's off putting”  
  
“It's sort of complicated.” Gee sighed, flopping back down as Spiderman Brian and Lady Bandit Thor came storming into the kitchen.   
  
“Is there ever a time when it isn't?” Lyn called, clapping her hands as the kitchen Pirates were conquered. Colorful materials coating near every surface as smoke started to leak it's way out of the oven.   
  
“You are ours princess! We have freed you! Now come out of your bottle and rule the lands that are yours!” Bandit laughed, trying to escape from her father’s arms.   
  
“Soon my sweet, the spell cannot break until the next moon, but know that you have helped break it and within the week I shall return to you.” Lindsay laughed, waving at her daughter as she dumped another handful of confetti at the screen. Frowning as the magic didn't work a little better.  
  
“Come on B, we gotta help Daddy get ready for Frank, mummy has to rest now, all princesses have to get their beauty sleep.” Ray smiled, watching Bandit's smile wobble for a moment as Lindsay and Kitty blew her kisses and Steve poked a finger up Jimmies nose to try and cheer the kid up.   
  
As the screen went blank Bandit blinked, the furrows in her brow looking worryingly similar to the usual lines etched into her father’s forehead.   
  
“I want her back now, why doesn't the magic work now?” Gerard blinked, sniffing for a moment before his eyes grew very fucking wide.   
  
“Because there's a dragon in the kitchen and princesses can't come back to castles that have dragons in them! Brian get Bandit outside.” Gerard called, eyes growing even wider as he noticed the red flickers amongst the black clouds of smoke that had been leaking steadily out of his oven for longer than he was comfortable with.   
  
“But I want to fight!” Bandit called as Brian scooped her up, phone out and ready, though whether he should call 911 or Bob was really a 50/50 decision right now.   
  
“Not this time sweet heart.” Gerard called waving for Ray to get back with the saucepan of water he was holding.  
  
“Are you really equipped to deal with fires on your own? Toro is like a walking fire hazard!” Brian yelled, towing the shocked four year old out into the hallway as Gerard wrapped a wet tea towel around his head to open his smoke filled oven.   
  
The actual fire wasn't that bad, it sort of got worse when Gerard tried to take the tray out and spilt it on the cupboard and Ray tried to put it out with a saucepan that had about as much oil as it had water in it. Thankfully Mrs. Harrisford from across the hall had a fire extinguisher and better coping abilities than the three grown men in Gerard's apartment.   
  
Safe to say, the frantic text messages that Gerard missed, asking for forgiveness due to running late with shifts and then getting stuck on the side of the road with Patrick’s entire house in the back of his car from Frank were met with sighs of relief from the group as a whole. After settling on A; toss an artful throw rug over the mess and get take out (which was less settled upon and more Brian taking 'creative control' of Gerard’s life for a while) the entire event became mostly amusing as Bandit tumbled around trying to read everyone’s fortune cookies which she quickly changed into telling peoples fortunes on her own to get upset about their princess spell not working. 

“ Aren't you supposed to be going to dinner with Gerard tonight?” Patrick called from behind one of countless towering piles of boxes in Ray and Bob's apartment.   
  
“Nah I cancelled again, as soon as this load is done I am going straight home to fucking sleep, even I can admit defeat sometimes when it comes to my bitch of a body.” Frank sighed, nodding to Bob as he wandered past, carrying everything heavy ever.

Problem was, Frank hadn't cancelled with Gerard. He'd cancelled with Brian.

But Brian wasn't in the mood to clarify shit with air headed trouble making twats and was busy, doing business things. 

So Gerard was still sort of expecting Frank to turn up, which wasn't great because his kitchen was still half covered in throw rugs to hide a multitude of varyingly burnt cupboards.

  
“You know you're supposed to cook the food, not your kitchen.”

“ Thank you for the advice.” Gerard called, from his bedroom, wrestling with a rather tricky sock for a few more moments before stopping, to stare blankly at his bedroom door for a moment. Why was his kitchen talking to him? Bandit was out with Frances and Alicia for the evening and he was very sure that no one else was meant to be coming over, especially not people who sounded Scottish.

“ You never do know with you kid.”

Gerard stared at his rogue sock for a moment, pulling on a t-shirt before he made his way back out into his kitchen, taking in the amusing sight of Grant-fucking-Morrison poking a charred piece of pumpkin with a bright pink chop stick.

“ Flying half way across the world to insult my cooking abilities is stretching it, even for us Grant.” Gerard grinned, running a hand through the wild black tangle on his head as he listened to his friend laugh at him for a long moment, shaking their heads at one another as Gerard stumbled forwards for a hug.  
  
“Sadly I didn't reenter society just to fuck with you, as tempting as that often is; the business called and then dictated and sent me some angry mail, so here I am.” Grant explained, waving his arms in the general direction of Gerard’s kitchen.

“ Well that doesn't exactly explain why you are /here/ but beggars can't be choosers, coffee?” Gee smiled, butting his head against Grants shoulder as he moved past, and breathing a little easier without even realizing it. Life always seemed to make more sense when Grant was around. The man had some epic cosmic good juju going on.

“ Always and afterwards shall we get dinner? I'm in meetings for the next few days before I'm off back to Europe, the moment they get you out of the mountains they force you all over the place it seems.” Grant sighed, shaking his head a little as he sunk down into an only slightly crispy dining chair, quietly enjoying the disaster that was surrounding him, Gerard never failed to be interesting as hell.   
  
“The ever present 'they' I understand completely, I almost got myself in a lot more trouble than was needed with 'them' last week. They didn't like what I did with Rumor.” Gerard explained, watching his coffee maker more intently than was entirely needed. It was good having someone to talk to about this sort of thing, someone who understood it completely, though he still wasn't entirely comfortable with that person being one of his childhood idols. Failing was one thing, but failing in the eyes of the man sitting at his slightly charred, crayon coated dining table, well it was unimaginable.   
  
“I've told you before and I'll tell you again, I've never taken an editors advice on what I should or shouldn't do with my characters, you know them, they are yours, they're made of your skin, they come from the very frayed strings of your heart, don't doubt that, ever. You're too good for that.” Grant replied, raising an eyebrow as he watched Gerard fumble around his disaster of a kitchen.   
  
“I just don't want them to you know...” Gerard sighed, waving a hand around beside his head as he stirred sugar into Grant's coffee with the other.  
  
“Take it all away and leave you back where you started a poor somewhat starving artist, recovering from a life of alcoholism and drug abuse living in your best friends attic with no prospects?” Grant finished, nodding his thanks as Gerard handed him his coffee, righting the cup quickly as his friends hands shook a little at his rather blunt proposal.   
  
Gerard blinked, picking up his own coffee, nursing it for a moment, more out of the need to have something to do with his hands than the need for actual caffeination “Well when you put it that way.”   
  
“It sounds damn near impossible, because it is and if you'll remember the last time we talked about this, that situation wasn't the worst one to be in, we both know what it's like to wake up in hospital beds not knowing where or who we are, you're not there now and you'll never be again, so what if your editor kicks up a stink because you took a risk, fuck I killed Robin when he was Bruce Wayne’s son. That wasn't exactly met with a group hug and pint down the road, you want controversy, you want your editor sending you a torrent of fearful emails, if they're on the edge only imagine how your readers will feel, that's who you write for, for the people like you, who hold these pages in their hands like they're something else, something tangible.”

“ Can you come back to the real world more often?” Gerard mumbled, smiling into his coffee as he listened to Grant laugh heartily, shaking his head as he took a slow drink from his mug.   
  
“Maybe I'll hijack the whole family soon, get you to come and hide in the mountains with us, we've got the space. Though I'm not sure Mikey would last more than a couple of hours without phone service.” Grant pondered, frowning for a moment as he imagined Mikey running around the fields outside his home phone held up to the skies, perfect hair a  disheveled mess.

_

“ How did you think that helping Patrick move his entire fucking house was a good idea when your lungs are trying to crawl out of your chest, Iero? Fuck, you're a human disaster if I ever met one.” Jamia grumbled, watching Frank wheeze his way towards his bedroom. She was going to kill Bob for letting the moronic midget now having a coughing fit in the other room tire himself out this much.   
  
“GET INTO BED I WILL HEAT UP FOOD, IF YOU SMOKE OR EVEN TOUCH YOUR GUITAR I WILL CALL YOUR MOTHER.” Jamia called from the kitchen, smiling a little as she imagined Frank's winces in reply.   
  
Frank wasn't going to smoke, well not until after soup and tea and pain killers, because his throat was full of razors and he would have attempted the guitar thing but his entire room sort of looked and felt like it was underwater right now, so he settled for laying on his bed in his boxers, making occasional pathetic groaning noises while he started at the ceiling.   
  
Tea arrived before food, with pain killers and a continual disapproving look from his roommate.   
  
“You are going to kill yourself and then I'm going to be forced to open a record label with Mikey and Bob and it will be the worst because Mikey will care more about our online presence than the actual bands and Bob will be grumpy and everything will be ruined because you decided to get yourself murdered by the common cold instead of joining forces with me to make an amazing Indie recording label, you thoughtless little shit.” For all the cranky face and words there was a softness in her town as she watched the hapless idiot of a best friend sit across from her, gulping down pills and tea, smiling weakly at her in between coughing fits.   
  
“You are the best chiding grumpy, best friend I've ever had.” Frank wheezed, watching her with watery eyes. The kid looked seriously stoned.   
  
“That's a compliment, considering how expansive Brian’s particular skill sets are in those areas” Jamia smiled, pressing a cool hand against Frank's brow. “You're way too hot to be anywhere near the good kind of unhealthy, if you're still this shit in the morning I'll skive off work and take you to the clinic.”   
  
Frank winced at the proposition but knew better than to argue by this point. “Now as beautiful as you are Jam, we've talked about this before, I know you find me attractive but it would never work.” Frank giggled, ducking as Jamia tossed a packet of tissues at him on her way out the door.   
  
“Food will be ready in fifteen minutes mother fucker, try and nap, no smokes, no guitar, no comics, just snoozing.”  
  
Gerard and Grant were in the car, “So dinner yes, but I have to drop something off because my friend was supposed to come over and then he never actually did, so I will just drop them at his house.”  
  
“Friend?” Grant replied, shrugging on a jacket as Gerard wound himself up in scarves.   
  
“Frank.” Gerard Frowned, getting a little tangled for a moment before he pulled on a leather jacket and waved them out the door.   
  
Grant wiggled his eyebrows, letting out an annoyingly slow “ooooh~” as they made their way downstairs.   
  
“What does that mean? I haven't told you anything about Frank, why that ooh?” Gerard grumbled, sliding into his car, rolling his eyes as Grant giggled at it, there was nothing wrong with a grown man driving a black beetle, the car was practical and new and it was fine. So what if it was a bit 'girly'.   
  
“Because you reacted like that.” Grant replied through a grin, watching the world outside slide past, it was always strange being back in America like this, house after house, streets slathered in concrete, the dust of the planet lay in cities like these, just waiting for the final storm to catch it up and darken the sun one last time.   
  
“But I didn't react like that until after you said it.” Gerard frowned, turning towards Frank's street, tapping at his phone to double check his address, he actually lived convienantly close. Gerard wondered why no one had ever mentioned that before.   
  
Grant replied, watching Gerard utter zone out as he explained his point of view, finishing with “exactly!” And a rather satisfied look on his face, causing Gee to pout like a five year old as he pulled up outside a pretty decent looking apartment complex.   
  
“You are the worst, stay in the car.”   
  
“You are starting to sound like Brian.”  
  
Gerard sighed, throwing him the bird as he triple checked the number, trying the door which was thankfully unlocked before he buzzed up, he wasn't really in the mood to have an awkward conversation with Franks roommate through an intercom right now. Sending a final text Frank's way Gerard chewed at his lip, knocking on the front door, if all else failed he could just leave the final copies with Jamia right?

“ What do you want?” Jamia called from the kitchen, taking longer than was entirely needed to make it to the door, peaking through the peep hole she noted the wild haired but well-dressed individual from several of Alicia's recent facebook updates with a grin. So she'd get to meet the guy without supervision, excellent.

“ So you’re the infamous Gerard.” Jamie stated, enjoying the twist of confusion that obviously made its way across Gerard’s face as he nodded while attempting to say “yes” and “how do you know that” at the same time.

  
In the end he ended up with “I’m infamous?” and a shocked look on his face as he kicked his shoes against the hard concrete in the stair well. Giving Jamia a weak smile as she waved him in.

  
“In this house hold you are.” She explained, standing to watch Gerard loiter, not knowing if he should take his jacket off or just sort of hand her the tube of art and make a run for it, watching people exist uncomfortably outside of their natural habitats had to be a favorite of Jamia's, it really showed the truest sides of a human.

  
“So I am guessing Frank has told you about me?” Gerard replied awkwardly, eye's flicking around the apartment, it was nice, reasonably clean with dashes of Frank here and there, discarded shoes, the occasional band poster or piece of music equipment sitting around, it was nice, getting to see the space that he existed in so often.

  
“He made me read all your damn comics.” Jamia replied, heading back into the kitchen to check on the soup, smiling as Gerard followed her like a puppy.

  
Her tone wasn't exactly annoyed but 'damn' didn't sound great. “Oh.” he replied, frowning a little as Jamia chuckled, pushing a cup of tea into his hand, shaking her head when he went to sniff it.   
“I don’t read comics and that is for Frank, who is actually here, he's just in his room, dying of pneumonia or scarlet fever or whatever the fuck he's come down with now.” She explained, handing him another cup that smelt and looked a lot more like black coffee.

  
“Sorry?”

  
“They’re good actually, cool characters, violin chick is fucked up, rumors cute, though if you’re not careful she’s likely to get a little contrived.” Jamie responded, pointing to the black coffee before giving him a thumbs up as she dipped her head down to test out the soup. Mother Iero had done it again; the woman was a wizard with vegetables.

  
“The next issue changes that.” Gerard offered into his cup of coffee, looking off towards the living room.

  
“Good,” Jamia nodded, pointing her spoon off towards the other end of the apartment, “His room is the one with the skull on the door, living room then to the right, tell him foods almost done.”

Gerard blinked, stumbling out an attempt at thanks before he made his way towards Frank's room, frowning as he tried to sort out the past five minutes of conversation inside his brain.

-

Frank wasn't sleeping like he'd been told to, he wasn't playing his guitar either, so there was a plus, but yeah okay maybe he was smoking, but he was only going to have one and then he'd try and sleep, all the honey in his tea had made his throat feel so much better and he'd been so damn good all day, one smoke couldn't hurt could it?

 “Frank?”

Frank let out a yelp, a little too lost in his head to expect Jamia just yet. Pushing his head through the bars for a moment Frank drew in one last lung full of smoke, calling out a wheezy “Give me a second!” As Gerard loitered outside his doorway for a few moments.   
  
“Are you alright?” Gerard called, frowning a little as he checked his watch, he'd left Grant outside for a while longer than he'd really expected and his phone was in his jacket which he'd left on the couch next to the drawings, which is what he really should have been dropping off to Frank rather than tea.   
  
Frank wasn't alright, though he was too busy panicking to really think about replying to the question. Frank's head, which had so easily pushed through the bars wasn't coming out. Spitting his cigarette out the window Frank let out a groan, the wind from outside as cold as balls and he seriously wasn't in the fucking mood to have to deal with another lecture from Jamia right now.   
  
Opening the door a little Gerard called out a warning “Are you decent?” before walking straight in, because he warned him, so that was enough right?  
  
“Yes, well no, but oh god, you're in my room.” Frank sighed, well Frank's butt did, because that's all Gerard could see, clad in boxers thankfully, or not thankfully, depending on how he looked at it.   
  
“Yeah and you're in boxers, with your head out a window.” Gerard replied, a little awe struck, standing dumbly in the door way, watching Frank wiggle around uncomfortably, sort of mesmerised by his dark blue boxers shuffling around in front of him, long pale expanses of thigh appearing just below the well-worn material, his back arched in a painful line. For the first time Gerard noticed tattoos spreading from Frank's upper arms along his back, wrapping around invitingly onto his chest.   
  
“More like stuck in it.” Frank sighed, breaking Gerard out of his momentary perv fest, what the hell was he thinking? Frank was stuck in a window and aparently sick, if the coughing and lemon tea he was holding were anything to go by.   
  
“Do you need help?” Gerard asked, moving to put the cups down on the only currently half way clear surface, Frank's bedside table, ducking down a little to catch Franks eye, waving awkwardly as Frank gave him a pained smile.   
  
“Yup.” Frank sighed, waiting for the inevitable laughter he could see shuddering it's way out of Gerards chest.   
  
“You're aware you're never living this down right?” Gerard giggled, trying to move in closer, causing Frank to almost fall.   
  
“Just get me out of the fucking window.”  
  
“Now now, manners Frank.” Gerard chided, pushing comics and books out of the way as he climbed onto Frank's bed to get a better look. “This isn't exactly the way I'd expected to end up with you half naked in your bed, though it's definitely going to have a better story attached to it.’’   
  
“Man your bedside manner is amazing.” Frank winced, going pink right up to his ears as Gerard leant in to get a closer look, ink stained fingers pressing against his throat, testing the distance between it and the bars.   
  
“I don't see why you had to stick your head all the way in, why not just hold your arm out like a normal person?” Gerard asked, trying to see if he could bend Frank's ears back and somehow pop his head out that way.   
  
Frank had already tried the ear thing but fuck it if he wasn't happy to try anything again if it worked, “Because Jamia has super sonic smelling powers.” he grunted, letting out a triumphant yelp when he thought he felt his head start to give, really it was just Gerard falling over and pushing him a bit.   
  
“I don't think that's an actual thing.” Gerard sighed, slipping on a magazine as he tried to get closer to Frank who was flapping his arms around in an attempt to not fall on his face. This evening really wasn't panning out the way he had planned.  
  
“Oh it is.” Frank replied, getting a hand full of Gerards hair by mistake, choking out a laughed apology as Gerard sort of flailed and yelped, kicking Frank square in the hip as he tried to right himself.   
  
“You know apparently women have inherited exceptional smelling abilities due to our cave dwelling ancestors?” Frank paused, raising an eyebrow that no one could actually see as he listened to Gerard getting himself together beside him.   
  
“Cave men made women smell super sonically?” He asked, blinking as Gerard sort of appeared beside him, all big dark eyes and messy hair.   
  
Gee's brow furrowed into what Frank could have only described as an adorable frown as he bit at his lip for a moment before replying with a rather authoritive, “Cave people, best to be more gender neutral Frank.”   
  
“That's interesting, but I feel like it would be more interesting if my head wasn't stuck in the bars of my window, if you catch my drift.” Frank chuckled, ruffling Gerards hair a little more before wiggling his butt at Gerard, causing the two of them to dissolved into another set of giggles, this was all entirely ridiculous.   
  
By the time Grant managed to find the right apartment (it hadn't actually been that hard, Gerard had repeated the address to him at least 5 times on the way here, the guy was seriously bad at directions) Gerard had tried to pull Frank out from behind, underneath and each side before twisting one of his fingers really painfully. After this Frank agreed that he should probably sit down for a while and the two of them settle in to drink their coffee and tea's, Frank thankfully being able to fit his cup through the bars. Jamia had been back to the room twice, leaving both times in a fit of laughter, chased out by Frank cursing at her and the appearance of her smart phone. This was not an event that needed to be immortalized by social media.   
  


“ Hello I hate to be a nuisance but is Gerard in here? He said he was just dropping something off but he never came back to the car”

Jamia blinked. There was a huge bald leather clad Scottish man standing in her doorway, and her roommate was currently being extracted from a window by some famous comic book writing guy, what the hell was happening to their lives?

“ Well yes, he is here, you can come in …?” Jamia replied, waving the man inside, gaze slowly moving upwards as she tried to take him in.

“ Oh right, yes, Grant Morrison, lovely to meet you. I don’t mean to intrude, it’s rather cold out there and I wanted to make sure Gerard hadn’t managed to get mugged and murdered on the way up the stairs.”

“ I’m Jamia, Gerard is in with Frank, trying to extract him from some window bars, did you say, Grant Morrison?” Grant nodded politely, which looked rather odd but utterly charming on the hulking giant of a man. 

  
“He made me read your comics too.” She explained, tugging at a stray piece of hair as it fell out of the messy bun she'd attempted to confine it all into earlier in the evening.

  
“Oh, how did you find them?” Grant enquired, following Jamia as she led him towards Frank’s bedroom.

  
“Well he tried to make me read the one with the space alien pirate bug people and the dude who’s cut up about his dying cat, bit too much of a brain fuck for me, Doom patrol reboot was cute though.” Jamia finished, waving her hand towards Frank and Gerard, or rather Gerard who was sort of wrapped around Frank, one foot planted on the wall, the other behind them, both hands around Frank’s middle.

  
“I like her.” Grant chuckled, nodding at Jamia as she shook her head, tugging at the tattered sleeve of one of Franks old jumpers, of course they had to have guests when she was wearing her ex-girlfriends batman PJ’s and a ratty jumper.

  
“I like her too, if the ‘her’ we are talking about is Jamia, fuck ow Gerard stop pulling!” Frank snapped, trying to wiggle out of Gerard’s grip which just sort of turned into some really unsexy dry humping kind of maneuver and fuck there were people in his room now, that was not good. “Wait who likes her? Who else is in my house?”

  
“Grant likes her, stop moving fuck Frank you almost elbowed me in the spleen.” Gerard whined, his hands slipping a little on Frank's skin, making the man beneath him shudder involuntarily.

  
Frank was sweating by this point and not in the way he'd imagined he would be, half naked with Gerard's hands making grabby movements all over his chest, now they had someone new watching the spectacle, fucking great. “Your spleen is further down, I am not Mr. Stretch man, that shit ain’t possible.” He snapped back.

  
“Why is there a person stuck in that window?” Grant asked as he watched Jamia adjust her phone to get the best light for the video she had just begun to shoot. 

  
“Why is there a Scottish person in my bedroom?” Frank answered as Jamia sniggered, telling Grant to wave as she turned the camera on him, to which he obliged in a confused but cheerful manner. Americans had always been such strange fucking people, bless them. 

  
“Wait there’s a Scottish person, called Grant in my bedroom…” Frank supplied helpfully as Gerard wiggled and almost fell over, squawking a little as he reached forwards to grab onto one of the bars.

  
“Yeah it’s the weird dude from those comics you like, he’s nice though, you’re nice by the way.” Jamia explained, winking as Grant grinned in response.

  
“Grant, Scottish, Grant Morrison, who is friends with Gerard, because they work in comics, oh god, Mary mother of Jesus please kill me now.” Frank cried, waving a hand in Grant's general direction, Jamia reached out and smacked it, as if he were attempting to high five her, causing the man’s arm to go limp, there was no good way out of this situation.

  
“Does he always talk like this? I can see him being interesting to gather character idea’s from.” Grant replied, moving over a little as Jamia got him to pose throwing up a piece sign as Gerard and Frank struggled in the background so she could send a snapchat to Alicia and Mikey.

  
“I think his brain might be breaking, Gerard how’s his head looking? Is it swollen?” Jamia called, moving towards Frank as if to check his current head swelling status.

  
“Nothing is swollen oh my god get out of my room!” Frank snapped, pushing Gerard out of the way with his butt by mistake, once again making everything that should be sexy as unsexy as possible.

“ Perhaps you should grease his head up? I remember when Charlie got her head stuck in a bar stool one night, everyone was so drunk it took them about an hour to notice, as soon as they did though the bar tender got some butter and popped her head right out, do you have any butter?” Grant offered, now struggling with the camera function of Jamia's phone as she posed for several photo's, holding her hands up to frame Gerard's head and her room mates behind.   
  
“That could work I suppose.” Gerard frowned, taking a sip of his rather luke warm coffee as he stepped back to try and get a different perspective of the situation, which yeah okay was mainly just him staring at Franks ass, not that he could complain, Frank could and was, but the view really wasn't anything to bitch about from his end.

  
“Great let’s smear animal fat all over me, because this evening wasn't already completely humiliating.” Frank huffed, sinking down a little as he leant against the window, letting out a slow series of coughs, he really was too tired for this shit right now.

  
“I was thinking WD40; if it gets rusty screws out it would have to work on my log headed roommate.” Jamia offered, scrolling through the numerous photo's she and Grant had just taken, showing the occasional extra funny one to Gerard who giggled guiltily.

  
“I am not a rusty screw.” Frank grumbled, trying to give Jamia the finger without being able to actually see her.

  
“Oh no darling you’re an excellent screw, if reputation is anything to go by.” She laughed, swinging around to take a selfie so everyone could be involved, “Throw that bird up again, I think we've got your new album cover photo right here kid.”

  
“I am going to murder everyone you care about.” Frank growled, tossing random magazines and books at the group behind him, totally missing everyone due to his lack of any kind of vision.

  
“Suicide is not the way Frank.” Jamia warned before turning back to Grant,  “ This might take a while. Can I make you a cup of tea Grant? I think Gerard’s got this one.” She finished giving Gerard the thumbs up as she led Grant back towards the kitchen, chuckling as Gerard resumed his position of weirdly hugging Frank from behind.

\--

Gerard had moved back for the moment, chewing on his lip as he tried to figure out the best angle to attempt to work with. It was sort of a shame they were in a hurry because Frank’s hair and face at this angle would be really amazing to draw, his eyes were all bright and his cheeks high and red with fever or temper he wasn’t really sure. They were more golden than usual, the colors sharp, and his expression wild and nervous, like a caged animal, which Gerard supposed was pretty close to the truth.

  
Frank shivered a little as Gerard moved away, his sudden lack of body heat making Frank feel more exposed than he felt comfortable admitting. He could hear Grant and Jamia moving around in the kitchen, so at least his humiliation could move back towards manageable levels. “Sorry if I hurt you at all, got a bit of a shock with Grant.”

Gerard shook his head, taking a few moments to realize that Frank couldn’t really see him all that well. Blinking, Gerard’s gaze shifted to Franks back. It was bowed painfully, the line if his spine mapping its way down his back, disappearing into a rather old pair of boxers. It was strange to see Frank like this, muscles taut beneath his skin, sweat slicked, breaths heaving from his chest.

“ Uh dude?” Frank blinked, trying to get a better look at Gerard who seemed to be sort of frozen in the spot, what had he seen a fucking spider, cause if he had and he wasn’t saying anything Frank was going to murder him, head stuck in a window or no.

“ Oh Frank, your neck.” Gerard murmured, disregarding Frank’s question as he moved in closer, brushing his fingertips along the angry red lines that had formed on Frank’s neck from where the bars had been rubbing against it.

Frank froze for a moment, the sudden invasion of space catching him off guard, the touch was actually pretty soothing, which threw Frank even more off kilter. The whole situation sucked, but also wow yeah, this was a new development that Frank would have liked to have taken place somewhere that wasn’t in his room with his head stuck in the bars of an ancient window.  
  
“We're going to have to put something on that when we get you out.” Gerard replied, his breath warm against Frank's already burning skin. Fuck Frank did not need his head to be this fuzzy when he couldn't do anything about the idiot that was clambering all over him.   
  
With a bit of wiggling Gerard managed to get himself underneath Frank, which Frank couldn't really understand the point of, but hey, it was sure as shit nicer to be staring awkwardly down at Gerard instead of at the wall and his pillows.   
  
“So uh, hey.” Gerard mumbled, waving awkwardly as he cocked his head to the side, eyes attempting to discover some hidden magic that would free Frank from his confines.   
  
“I'm sorry I ended up fucking with your night, I know I've cancelled on you like three times in a row, it wasn't on purpose, lifes just taken a turn for the worst, though I guess you are discovering that first hand now.” Frank sighed, enjoying the way emotions seemed to shiver their way across Gerard's features.   
  
“You didn't ruin anything really, I think Grant's having a great time and you're hurt and stuck, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now.” Gerard shrugged, leaning up a little to press his palm to Frank’s chest, feeling the man’s shaky breaths and erratic heart beat straight through his heavily inked skin.   
  
“Well it's nice having you, like, here, I mean, not, wow, this is, oh.” Frank squeaked, his shoulder muscles tensing for a moment before his entire body went sort of slack, mostly from exhaustion.   
  
Slack probably wasn't the right word, or the word Gerard would have used when Frank sort of turned to Jelly and pretty much oozed out of the iron bars and on top of him. Not that he minded, because Frank wasn't in pain anymore and he was so small he weighed fuck all, it was just, well it was a bit of a shock.   
  
“Ahh-yughm-shgthfgn.” Gerard replied, into Frank's hair and neck, arms waving around for a moment before he clamped them around Franks torso, meaning to move him so they could both breath, somewhere in the brain to body signal release he got a little muddled and ended up laying there talking nonsense into a very warm Frank who was on closer inspection passed the fuck out.   
  
“Fraaaaank.” Gerard whispered after several moments of wiggling, Frank may be small and not heavy enough to crush him but he was still, you know, human weight and on top of him. Gerard wasn't entirely sure why he was whispering, Frank was after all what appeared to be passed out on top of him, he was still warm, so he couldn't be dead, plus people didn't just die like that did they? If he'd suffocated he would have taken longer right? Fuck what if Frank was dead and now Gerard was trapped under him.   
  
“Mmm?” Frank mumbled, groaning and shuffling a little, sliding half off of Gerard, an arm and leg still thrown over him as he let out a slow yawn, his eyes opening as the world slowly swam into focus.   
  
“oh good you're not dead, that would have been bad, if you were dead, because I was trapped, literally under you and that's no way to like, see someone you care about die, I mean dying would have been worse but you're not dead, thank fuck, fuck.” Gerard mumbled, pressing his face into Frank's shoulder as he took several long slow breaths, by which time Frank was sort of wheeze giggling his ass off.   
  
“You were worried because you thought I was dead, why didn't you check? Or like call for help, didn't you notice I was breathing? How do you raise a child when you don't know how to check a pulse, dude I was literally on top of you.” Frank laughed  
  
“You still mostly are, good to see you got yourself out of that clusterfuck of a situation, Grant is ordering Chinese, you need some Neosporin and I think Gerard needs a valium, you alright there man?” Jamia laughed, watching Gerard turn swiftly from pale gray to rather deep red. These two needed their own sitcom, fucking seriously.   
  
__

By the time the takeout arrives the whole situation is pretty funny, even for Frank, who's neck and ears have seen better days, but his fever's mostly sweated out allowing a mellow sort of cloud to settle over the world.

“ By the way Iero, I've earned myself a couple extra hundred instagram followers and you may possibly have your own hashtag, just to let you know.” Jamia grinned, laughing as she ducked a flying piece of carrot. Gerard grinned, leaning against the couch beside Frank, still a little pink around the cheeks, the smell of warm skin and feeling of huffed breath against his neck still echoing in the back of his mind. The evening certainly hadn't panned out as planned, though for once, he was pretty sure he was alright with that.


End file.
